William Sharp, one of the first chromolithographic printers in the U.S., created these extraordinary illustrations for the large folio Victoria Regia (1854) by John Fisk Allen. Allen, a well-known horticulturalist, cultivated a specimen of the rare, huge (up to 8 feet in diameter), fast-growing (up to an inch an hour!) water lily, native to the Amazon. After months of careful tending, the plant—named in honor of the recently-crowned Queen Victoria—blossomed on the evening of July 21, 1853. Sharp’s depictions of this exotic wonder—in various stages of bloom—were masterpieces and elevated the then-nascent art of chromolithography to spectacular new heights.
image captions: All images are from a copy of Victoria Regia in our collections. Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens.
Once again, dear tumblr friends, I’ve been turned down. I received my second rejection letter this morning, from Conville and Walsh…and I have to say it was almost a pleasure being rejected. They certainly know how to let a boy down easy! They sent me a very nice letter and wished me well for the future. Of course I realise this was a form letter, but they did fill my name in pen at the top. Bless them.
“ […] for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs. ”
George Eliot, closing lines of “Middlemarch”
“‘I wonder if any other girl thinks her father the best man in the world!’
‘Nonsense, child. You’ll think your husband better.’
‘Impossible,’ said Mary, relapsing into her usual tone; ‘husbands are an inferior class of men, who require keeping in order.’
”
George Eliot, “Middlemarch”
Drawings by Aja Johnson available in her microMACRO Etsy store.
Johnson on her work:
I am mostly inspired by repetition in nature, and biology in general. I am fascinated by the visuals in science textbooks; I spend a lot of time at my local library pouring over them searching for inspiration.
“ And from all the spires of all the London churches- the fashionable saints of Mayfair, the dowdy saints of Kensington, the hoary saints of the city- the hour was proclaimed. ”
Virginia Woolf, “The Years”
Camille Claudel et Jessie Lipscomb dans leur atelier du N° 117 de la rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs, 1887. Photographed by William Elborne.
“ She wrapp’d it up; and for its tomb did choose
A garden-pot, wherein she laid it by,
And cover’d it with mould, and o’er it set
Sweet Basil, which her tears kept ever wet. ”
John Keats, “The Pot of Basil”
