Highgrove Florilegium
Encyclopedia
The Highgrove Florilegium
is a two-volume book of botanical illustrations
recording plants in the garden of Charles, Prince of Wales
at Highgrove House in Gloucestershire
. The volumes, published in 2008 and 2009, contain watercolours
painted by invited leading botanical artists
from around the world.The colour plates are reproduced in their original size from watercolour drawings. The publication is a limited edition of 175 sets, each signed by the Prince and all the royalties
from the Highgrove Florilegium are donated to The Prince's Charities Foundation
. The text is by Christopher Humphries and Frederick J. Rumsey and the preface is by HRH
The Prince of Wales. The publisher is Addison Publications, Each set is accompanied by a handmade green felt book cover with maroon ties.
and the flock of Indian Runner Ducks.
in order to create outstanding quality prints from the original watercolours. Stochastic lithography is an advancement in printing technology that can give a better print quality, cleaner more dynamic and accurate colour images, and reduce running waste. Whereas conventional lithography uses half-tone dots of various sizes and spaces these dots at the same distance from each other, stochastic lithography uses microdots of a common size of various spacing according to tonal value. Stochastic screening uses smaller printing dots to create a higher image detail. Tonal ranges and colour contrasts are also improved because the variation in dot distribution increases ink densities. The images were printed on 245 gsm American Cotton paper for the colour plates and on 175 gsm Somerset Bookwove text paper. The text is set in Fairbank and Bembo
book types.
motifs and gold leaf
tooling on the spine.
separately using the traditional technique of sprinkling the colours onto a viscous fluid prepared from Carragheen moss and manipulating a pattern in the paint using a stylus
. The paper is carefully lowered onto the floating pattern and then lifted, rinsed and hung out to dry. Each pattern on each piece of paper must be controlled to check they are the same.
Some of these institutions have put the books on display for public exhibition.
Florilegium
In medieval Latin a florilegium was a compilation of excerpts from other writings. The word is formed the Latin flos and legere : literally a gathering of flowers, or collection of fine extracts from the body of a larger work. It was adapted from the Greek anthologia "anthology", with the same...
is a two-volume book of botanical illustrations
Botanical illustration
Botanical illustration is the art of depicting the form, colour, and details of plant species, frequently in watercolour paintings. These are often printed with a botanical description in book, magazines, and other media...
recording plants in the garden of Charles, Prince of Wales
Charles, Prince of Wales
Prince Charles, Prince of Wales is the heir apparent and eldest son of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. Since 1958 his major title has been His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales. In Scotland he is additionally known as The Duke of Rothesay...
at Highgrove House in Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn, and the entire Forest of Dean....
. The volumes, published in 2008 and 2009, contain watercolours
Watercolor painting
Watercolor or watercolour , also aquarelle from French, is a painting method. A watercolor is the medium or the resulting artwork in which the paints are made of pigments suspended in a water-soluble vehicle...
painted by invited leading botanical artists
Botanical illustrator
A botanical illustrator is a person who paints, sketches or otherwise illustrates botanical subjects such as trees and flowers. The job requires great artistic skill, attention to fine detail, and technical botanical knowledge...
from around the world.The colour plates are reproduced in their original size from watercolour drawings. The publication is a limited edition of 175 sets, each signed by the Prince and all the royalties
Royalties
Royalties are usage-based payments made by one party to another for the right to ongoing use of an asset, sometimes an intellectual property...
from the Highgrove Florilegium are donated to The Prince's Charities Foundation
The Prince's Charities Foundation
The Prince’s Charities Foundation was founded by The Prince of Wales in 1979 and was previously called the Prince of Wales’s Charitable Foundation. The intention of the Prince’s Charities Foundation is to support charitable bodies and purposes in which the Prince of Wales has a particular interest...
. The text is by Christopher Humphries and Frederick J. Rumsey and the preface is by HRH
Royal Highness
Royal Highness is a style ; plural Royal Highnesses...
The Prince of Wales. The publisher is Addison Publications, Each set is accompanied by a handmade green felt book cover with maroon ties.
Design
The book contains original sketches of motifs from the garden at Highgrove decorate the text and the end papers. The decorative motifs include plants in the garden, the Princes' tree house, the dove coteDovecote
A dovecote or dovecot is a structure intended to house pigeons or doves. Dovecotes may be square or circular free-standing structures or built into the end of a house or barn. They generally contain pigeonholes for the birds to nest. Pigeons and doves were an important food source historically in...
and the flock of Indian Runner Ducks.
Printing
The printing of both the text and the image pages used stochastic lithographyLithography
Lithography is a method for printing using a stone or a metal plate with a completely smooth surface...
in order to create outstanding quality prints from the original watercolours. Stochastic lithography is an advancement in printing technology that can give a better print quality, cleaner more dynamic and accurate colour images, and reduce running waste. Whereas conventional lithography uses half-tone dots of various sizes and spaces these dots at the same distance from each other, stochastic lithography uses microdots of a common size of various spacing according to tonal value. Stochastic screening uses smaller printing dots to create a higher image detail. Tonal ranges and colour contrasts are also improved because the variation in dot distribution increases ink densities. The images were printed on 245 gsm American Cotton paper for the colour plates and on 175 gsm Somerset Bookwove text paper. The text is set in Fairbank and Bembo
Bembo
Bembo is the name given to a 20th-century revival of an old style serif or humanist typeface cut by Francesco Griffo around 1495.The typeface Bembo seen today is a revival designed under the direction of Stanley Morison for the Monotype Corporation in 1929.It is considered a good choice for...
book types.
Bookbinding
The books are half-bound in red goatskin with marbled paper boards and sprinkled edges. The pages were collated and sewn by hand. That is, after the text and plate pages were soft folded, holes were punched into them for the sewing needle. Then the pages were sewn and the boards of the book cover were laced on. The collated and sewn books are hand finished with embossed hand tooled leatherLeather crafting
Leather crafting or simply Leathercraft is the practice of making leather into craft objects or works of art, using shaping techniques, coloring techniques or both.-Dyeing:...
motifs and gold leaf
Gold leaf
right|thumb|250px|[[Burnishing]] gold leaf with an [[agate]] stone tool, during the water gilding processGold leaf is gold that has been hammered into extremely thin sheets and is often used for gilding. Gold leaf is available in a wide variety of karats and shades...
tooling on the spine.
Marbling
Each sheet of paper was hand marbledPaper marbling
Paper marbling is a method of aqueous surface design, which can produce patterns similar to smooth marble or other stone. The patterns are the result of color floated on either plain water or a viscous solution known as size, and then carefully transferred to an absorbent surface, such as paper or...
separately using the traditional technique of sprinkling the colours onto a viscous fluid prepared from Carragheen moss and manipulating a pattern in the paint using a stylus
Stylus
A stylus is a writing utensil, or a small tool for some other form of marking or shaping, for example in pottery. The word is also used for a computer accessory . It usually refers to a narrow elongated staff, similar to a modern ballpoint pen. Many styli are heavily curved to be held more easily...
. The paper is carefully lowered onto the floating pattern and then lifted, rinsed and hung out to dry. Each pattern on each piece of paper must be controlled to check they are the same.
Artists
Each plate is signed by the artist and blind embossed to record the copyright of A.G. Carrick Ltd, with the plate and edition numbers added in pencil.- Beverly Allen (b. Sydney, Australia)
- Helen Allen FLS (b. London, England)
- Fay Ballard (b. Twickenham, England)
- Caroline Barber (b. Bristol, England)
- Isobel Bartholomew (b. Birmingham, England)
- Stephanie Berni (b. Bristol, England)
- Evelyn Binns (b. Orpington, England)
- Valerie Bolas (b. Dover, England)
- Marie-Christine Bouvier (b. Geneva, Switzerland)
- Dr Valerie Bradburn (b. Sidcup, England)
- Jenny Brasier (b. Alvechurch, England)
- Dr Andrew Brown (b. Carshalton, England)
- Jane Bruce (b. London, England)
- Elizabeth Cadman (b. Chelmsford, England)
- Diana Carmichael (b. Penrhyn Bay, Wales)
- Gillian Condy (b. Kenya)
- Jill Coombs (b. Horsham, England)
- Joanna Craig-McFeely (b. Beckenham, England)
- Celia Crampton (b. Nyasaland, now Malawi)
- Sally Crosthwaite (b. Woking, England)
- Brigitte E.M. Daniel b. Beaconsfield, England)
- Rachael Dawson (b. Dronfield, England)
- Angélique de Folin (b. Paris, France)
- Elisabeth Dowle (b. London, England)
- Kate Nessler (b. St Louis (MI), United States)
- Anne O’Connor (b. Sydney, Australia)
- Susan Ogilvy (b. Kent, England)
- John Pastoriza-Piñol (b. Melbourne, Australia)
- Annie Patterson (b. RAF Halton, England)
- Juliet Percy (b. Bromley, England)
- Jenny Phillips (b. Victoria, Australia)
- Josephine Elwes (b. London, England)
- Kate Evans (b. Liverpool, England)
- The Hon. Gillian Foster (b. Dumfries, Scotland)
- Yvonne Glenister Hammond (b. London, England)
- Sarah Gould (b. Leicester, England)
- Lucinda Mary Grant (b. London, England)
- Josephine Hague (b. Liverpool, England)
- Ann Judith Harris-Deppe (b. Accra, Ghana)
- Noriko Hasegawa (b. Tokyo, Japan)
- Mayumi Hashi (b. Nara, Japan)
- Mieko Ishikawa (b. Tokyo, Japan)
- Junko Iwata (b. Nagoya, Japan)
- Jenny Jowett (b. Bromley, England)
- Yumi Kamataki (b. Chiba, Japan)
- Christabel King (b. London, England)
- Margaret King MBE, JP (b. Zimbabwe)
- Kumiko Kosuda (b. Miyagi Prefecture, Japan)
- Flappy Lane Fox (b. Farnborough, England)
- Chrissie Lightfoot (b. London, England)
- Fiona McKinnon (b. Darlinghurst, Australia)
- Katherine Manisco (b. London, England)
- Jill Mayhew (b. Essex, England)
- Kay Rees-Davies (b. Brighton, England)
- Janet Rieck (b. Chicago, United States)
- Lizzie Sanders (b. London, England)
- Elaine Searle (b. Birmingham, England)
- Sheila Siegerman (b. Kamloops, Canada)
- Sally Strawson (b. Yorkshire, England)
- Susanna Stuart-Smith (b. Birmingham, England)
- Jessica Tcherepnine (b. London, England)
- Vicki Thomas (b. South Africa)
- Noriko Tobita (b. Kanagawa-Ken, Japan)
- Erico Tosaki (b. Kawasaki, Japan)
- Sally Townshend (b. East London, South Africa)
- Sally Vincent (b. Leicestershire, England)
- Anita Walsmit Sachs-Jansen (b. Den Haag, The Netherlands)
- Amanda Ward (b. London, England)
- Hazel West-Sherring (b. Kingston upon Hull, England)
- Jennifer Wilkinson (b. Launceston, Australia)
- Susan Worthington (b. Stratford, New Zealand)
- Jane Wright (b. Dorchester, England)
Purchase and display
The book has been purchased by a range of institutions, including:- libraries (eg National Library of AustraliaNational Library of AustraliaThe National Library of Australia is the largest reference library of Australia, responsible under the terms of the National Library Act for "maintaining and developing a national collection of library material, including a comprehensive collection of library material relating to Australia and the...
; National Library of ScotlandNational Library of ScotlandThe National Library of Scotland is the legal deposit library of Scotland and is one of the country's National Collections. It is based in a collection of buildings in Edinburgh city centre. The headquarters is on George IV Bridge, between the Old Town and the university quarter...
; RHS Lindley LibraryRoyal Horticultural SocietyThe Royal Horticultural Society was founded in 1804 in London, England as the Horticultural Society of London, and gained its present name in a Royal Charter granted in 1861 by Prince Albert...
) - botanical gardens (eg FiloliFiloliFiloli is a country house set in of formal gardens surrounded by estate, located in Woodside, California, about 25 miles south of San Francisco, at the southern end of Crystal Springs Lake, on the eastern slope of the Santa Cruz Mountains....
; Royal Botanic Garden EdinburghRoyal Botanic Garden EdinburghThe Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh is a scientific centre for the study of plants, their diversity and conservation, as well as a popular tourist attraction. Originally founded in 1670 as a physic garden to grow medicinal plants, today it occupies four sites across Scotland — Edinburgh,...
; Royal Botanic Gardens, KewRoyal Botanic Gardens, KewThe Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, usually referred to as Kew Gardens, is 121 hectares of gardens and botanical glasshouses between Richmond and Kew in southwest London, England. "The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew" and the brand name "Kew" are also used as umbrella terms for the institution that runs...
; Royal Botanic Gardens, MelbourneRoyal Botanic Gardens, MelbourneThe Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne are internationally renowned botanical gardens located near the centre of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, on the south bank of the Yarra River. They are 38 hectares of landscaped gardens consisting of a mix of native and non-native vegetation including over...
; Royal Botanic Gardens, SydneyRoyal Botanic Gardens, SydneyThe Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney, Australia, are the most central of the three major botanical gardens open to the public in Sydney....
) - museums (eg Auckland War Memorial MuseumAuckland War Memorial MuseumThe Auckland War Memorial Museum is one of New Zealand's most important museums and war memorials. Its collections concentrate on New Zealand history , natural history, as well as military history.The museum is also one of the most iconic Auckland buildings, constructed in the neo-classicist...
; Canterbury Museum, Christchurch; J. Paul Getty MuseumJ. Paul Getty MuseumThe J. Paul Getty Museum, a program of the J. Paul Getty Trust, is an art museum. It has two locations, one at the Getty Center in Los Angeles, California, and one at the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, California...
; Teyler's Museum, The Netherlands) - universities (eg University of JohannesburgUniversity of JohannesburgThe University of Johannesburg came into existence on 1 January 2005 as the result of a merger between the Technikon Witwatersrand and the Rand Afrikaans University . Prior to the merger, the Daveyton and Soweto campuses of the former Vista University had been incorporated into RAU...
; University of MinnesotaUniversity of MinnesotaThe University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. It is the oldest and largest part of the University of Minnesota system and has the fourth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 52,557...
; University of South AfricaUniversity of South AfricaThe University of South Africa is a distance education university, with headquarters in Pretoria, South Africa. With approximately 300 000 enrolled students, it qualifies as one of the world's mega universities.-History:...
)
Some of these institutions have put the books on display for public exhibition.