Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.12842

    Cuttings of grape vines

    Date
    1854
    Creator
    Joseph James Forrester (1809 - 1861, British) , Topographer
    Object type
    Archive reference number
    Material
    Dimensions
    height (painting): 380mm
    width (painting): 270mm
    Subject
    Biology
       > Botany
    Content object
    nature
       > plant
    Description
    Botanical studies of grape vines Vitis vinifera. 11 figures, showing sections of vine from the Douro wine region of Portugal.

    Detail of an original illustration from the manuscript version of the paper ‘On the vine-disease in the port-wine districts of the Alto-Douro in April 1854. With a supplementary note on the proposed remedies for its eradication’, by J.J. Forrester. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, vol.7 (1854), pp.156-164.

    The grape varieties are not given. The date appears lower right, ‘Alto Douro 3rd April 1854’. The accompanying text states that these cuttings produce ‘an inferior description of wine in the neighbourhood of Villa Real. The fruit of which was all destroyed in 1853. These vines are new budding forth vigorously and casting the diseased skin from their branches’. The subject of the paper, the impact of the grape disease commonly called phylloxera, was devastating for European wine production in the nineteenth century.

    Joseph James Forrester (1809-1861) British wine merchant and topographer was a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, best known for his survey of the Duoro wine-growing region of Portugal.
    Associated place
    <The World>
       > Europe
          > Portugal
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