Flowers from an Indian Garden

A delightful Victorian botanical book by an aristocratic amateur artist living in India

Tinted title page, 12 chromolithographic plates: preface printed in gold with botanical border, and 11 fine botanical plates each with text leaf printed in gold.

Very fine botanical plates including group of flowers from Bombay, wild flowers from Mahableshwar, tulip tree, tuberose, Asian bleeding heart, jungle geranium, Bengal rose, crepe myrtle, tamarind, passionflower, lotus and the extinct Magnolia pterocarpa.

Emily Eden (1797-1869) was an English aristocrat, writer, novelist and traveler who accompanied her brother George, Lord Auckland, to India from 1836 to 1842 when he was Governor-General. While Emily was sketching flowers, George launched the Afghan Campaign in 1839, "one of the worst disasters in British military history." Emily published books of travel writings Up the Country, 1866 and Letters from India, 1872, novels The Semi-Detached House 1859, and the Semi-Attached Couple 1860.

She also privately printed books of her own sketches. Portraits of Princes & People of India was printed by the London lithographers J. Dickinson & Son in 1844. A presentation album of botanical watercolours called Original Sketches from Nature was the basis for Flowers from an Indian Garden.The First Series was privately printed by the German lithographers L. Baumann in 1846. The Second Series: Hope was privately printed by the German lithographers Breidenbach circa 1860. (See Bulletin of the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, Vol. 15 No. 1, Spring 2003.)

Often erroneously attributed to Mrs Hope (Anne Fulton) 1809-1887, an English religious writer born in Calcutta.

Very rare. Only one copy found in the British Library.

Original moulded cloth boards with raised gilt tooling with faint stain, rebacked with new cloth spine, watermarked silk endpapers, a.e.g., all chromolithographs fine and vibrant