MARY PARKER, COUNTESS OF MACCLESFIELD

Illustration from a botanical album created by Mary Parker, Countess of Macclesfield; she started the album in 1756 when she was 30 years of age. Flower painting had become a fashionable occupation for the wives and daughters of the great houses of England and Mary Parker achieved exceptional ability under the tutelage of Georg Ehret. The album contains 48 watercolor and gouache paintings on parchment; depicted are both sides of the plant's leaves and also shown are more than one reproductive stage for each specimen: with the early formation of the blossom, the growing petals, and the full expression of the flower. The images in the album depict numerous plant specimens, sometimes with butterflies and other insects, most likely local to the Macclesfield estate, Shirburn Castle, in Oxfordshire. Many of the illustrations are identified by names predating Carl Linnaeus' binomial plant nomenclature in his Species Plantarum (1753), while other notations on the illustrations include Linnaeus' names.