Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.18000

    European larch specimen

    Date
    ca.1730
    Creator
    Jacob van Huysum (1682 - 1745, Dutch) , Painter
    Object type
    Archive reference number
    Material
    Dimensions
    height (page): 370mm
    width (page): 270mm
    Subject
    Content object
    nature
       > plant
          > flower
    Description
    Botanical study of Larix decidua, common name European larch tree, referred to here as Larix folio deciduo. Depicts a branch with pink flowers open and in bud, and a section of branch with a brown cone and spray of needle-like green leaves inset. Native to the mountains of central Europe, in the Alps and Carpathian Mountains as well as the Pyrenees.

    Painting 52 from MS/109, a collection of botanical paintings by Jacob van Huysum and William Sartorius.

    Inscribed in ink 'Larix folio deciduo, conifera J. B.' Not signed.

    Described by Swiss botanist Johann Bauhin in his Historia plantarum universalis (1650-51). This painting is reproduced, in mirror image, in the Society of Gardeners' Catalogus Plantarum (1730) (plate 11, left figure).

    Jacob van Huysum (1682-1745), Dutch botanical painter, was not a Fellow of the Royal Society. He produced most of the 50 illustrations for the Historia Plantarum Rariorum (London: 1728-38) written by John Martyn FRS, and all the drawings for Philip Miller’s Catalogus Plantarum, an index of trees, shrubs, plants and flowers.
    Object history
    Repeated in the British Museum collection, SL,5284.33. Slight variations to the Royal Society copy. Digital image available on online catalogue.
    Associated place
    <The World>
       > Europe
          > United Kingdom
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