Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.18005

    Ash specimen

    Date
    ca.1730
    Creator
    Jacob van Huysum (1682 - 1745, Dutch) , Painter
    Object type
    Archive reference number
    Material
    Dimensions
    height (page): 374mm
    width (page): 267mm
    Subject
    Content object
    nature
       > plant
          > flower
    Description
    Botanical study of Fraxinus, common name ash, referred to here as Fraxinus florifera botryoides. Depicts a plant with green stem, green leaves and plumes of small white downward-facing flowers. Widespread across much of Europe, Asia, and North America.

    Painting 57 from MS/109, a collection of botanical paintings by Jacob van Huysum and William Sartorius.

    Inscribed in ink 'Fraxinus florifera botryoides, Mor. Hort. R. Blaess.' Not signed.

    Described by Robert Morison in Hortus Regius Blesensis Auctus (1669). According to Philip Miller's The Gardener's Dictionary (1735), seeds from this tree were brought from Italy by Dr William Sherrard, and raised in England by Dr Robert Uvedale in Enfield. This painting is reproduced, in mirror image, in the Society of Gardeners' Catalogus Plantarum (1730) (plate 9, engraved by by Elisha Kirkall).

    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,5284.28. Slight variations to the Royal Society copy. Digital image available on online catalogue.
    Associated place
    <The World>
       > Europe
          > United Kingdom
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