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Georg Dionysius Ehret (1708 -1770)
Georg Dionysius Ehret (1708-1770) Georg Ehret was born in Heidelberg, Germany, where he became a gardener at the local castle. It was here that he developed his artistic interests, drawing plants for a local apothecary and later for his first patron, Christoph Trew, a Nuremberg botanist and physician. As a result of new exotic plants being introduced to Germany and them coming into Trew's possession, Ehret was able to further develop his skills and became recognised as an outstanding botanical artist. Ehret lived at a time of scientific discovery and enlightenment in Europe, a 'golden age of botanical art'. His unique style and clarity of plant illustration was immediately useful and sought out by specialists. Some of his artworks were used in Trew's published work, Plantae Selectae (1750), and includes the one on display. Many finished works and sketches that were once owned and used by Sir Joseph Banks (1743-1820) are also held in the Natural History Museum, collectively forming part of the 'Banksian Collections'. Before coming to England in around 1736, Ehret spent two years in France, briefly at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, where he met the King's painter, the renowned Claude Aubriet. Ehret's methods changed as a result of his observations, favouring to paint in bodycolour and on vellum as a superior medium. Ehret also travelled to Holland, where he was fortunate to meet the great botanist and academic Carl Linnaeus. The two became good friends through common botanical interests and correspondence. During 1735-1736, he worked with Linnaeus at Georg Clifford's estate, De Hartecamp, located south of Haarlem. The estate was rich in botanical curiosities from around the world, because Clifford was a wealthy Dutch banker and governor of the Dutch East India Company, and therefore had the income to attract great botanists and artists such as Linnaeus and Ehret. Together they produced the Hortus cliffortianus in 1738, a critical and influential example of early botanical literature. Ehret's other illustrated work includes Philip Miller's Gardeners' Dictionary (1731) and later, Figures of plants ([1755-] 1760). These have influenced and advanced our knowledge of gardening and horticulture since the eighteenth century, and continue to remind us of our gardening heritage. Ehret also engraved and painted many of the plates himself for his own Plantae et Papiliones Rariores (1748-49). Back in England, Ehret's artistic reputation and increasing fame had spread across the nobility. Both the Duchess of Portland and Sir Hans Sloane (1660-1753) (whose collections later became a key part of the British Museum) became his patrons. He also went on to gain employment at the botanical garden in Oxford where he continued with his drawing of plants and taught botanical painting to others. In 1757, he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society, and later married the sister-in-law of the famous and most influential Chelsea gardener, Philip Miller. Ehret died in Chelsea in 1770. The plant (Ehretia) was named in the artist's honour and today there are known to remain more than 3,000 of his illustrations in collections.
This watercolour of Carica (a papaya) shows a mature, fruit-bearing plant. Ehret has also drawn the cut fruit and flowers of the plant in the foreground to inform the observer of their detail.
The tree is native to tropical Mesoamerica and is an evergreen. The fruit was used by the Mayans and later distributed widely by the Spanish and Portuguese. It is now a widely cultivated crop in places such as the southern USA, Hawaii, Southern Asia and South Africa. It is a popular food, as well as a food additive as it provides the enzyme papain from its latex, which can be used as a meat tenderiser.
The Georg Ehret Drawings Collection The Library at the Natural History Museum holds approximately 1,000 sketches and unfinished works by Ehret, as well as numerous others of his finished illustrations. Among these is a signed sketch (No. 169) of this plant. A similar painting in body colour on vellum exists from the same date in Lord Derby's Collection at Knowsley Hall. These paintings were made for a published version of the illustration which appeared as Plate 111 in Ehret's Plantae et Papilliones (1748-[49]). The Library also holds a manuscript by Christoph Trew that records Ehret's life and work, as well as other manuscript material by Ehret himself. Most of the collection was photographed, conserved, mounted and boxed during the 1980s to help preserve it and to improve access. Today it is a potential candidate for digitisation.
Exhibition and publication details This illustration has not been publicly displayed for many years. It was reproduced in Gerta Calmann's publication, Ehret: flower painter extraordinary: an illustrated biography (1977). Calmann, G. (1977) Ehret: flower painter extraordinary:
an illustrated biography. Phaidon Press Ltd.: Oxford.
160pp. Ehret. G. (1748-[49]) Plantae et Papiliones rariores, depictae, &c.: (Characteres Plantarum Rariorum observatae delineatae.--The History and analysis of the parts of the Jessamine, which flowered in the garden of R. Warner ... at Woodford, &c. London. 15pls. Trew, C. (1750-73) Plantae selectae, quarum imagines ad exemplaria naturalia Londini in hortis curiosorum nutrita manu artificosa doctaque pinxit G. D. Ehret: occasione haud vulgari collegit nominibus propriis notisque subinde illustravit … Norimberg. 56pp.
References and further reading Aiton, W. (1789) Hortus Kewensis. London. 3 vols. Barton, E. S. (1896) A Memoir of Georg Dionysius Ehret [1708-1770].
Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London. 1894-95,
pp.41-58. Murdoch, C. (1970) G.D. Ehret : botanical artist: a tribute to his genius. Inverness. 28pp. Saunders, J. (1987) Ehret's flowering plants. Michael
Joseph in association with the Victoria and Albert Museum
; Webb & Bower: London. 63pp. |
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