After Clara Pope (1767–1838) - Contemporary Giclee Complete Camellia Monograph

Description

A very fine contemporary copy in extra large sizing, of the original 1819 monograph on the Camellia flower, by the botanical artist Clara Maria Pope. The monograph consists of an illuminate title page, a page of information on the plant and five full colour giclees of the original studies of the flowers. This was the earliest and probably finest of all the great Camellia books (Great Flower Books.) Clara Pope had a sense of the dramatic and knew how to paint in the grand manner. Each page is reproduced to a very high quality with all the original plate information included. On wove.

Condition

A fine 18th Century engraving after Rembrandt, showing Hagar and Ishmael's departure into the desert. There is an inscription in plate with the title, publisher's details and artist's names. The mezzotint has been cropped within the original plate lines and laid to board.

Size

68.5 x 49.5cm (27" x 19.5")

Artist Biography

Born in London, Leigh was christened in 1767 at St Andrew-by-the-Wardrobe. Her father was Jared Leigh, an amateur artist. She worked as an artist's model for a number of years. She married the painter Francis Wheatley, probably in the 1780s, and they had four children.
Leigh began by painting miniatures, and by 1796 she was exhibiting at the Royal Academy. Her husband died in 1801, and Leigh struggled to support her family. An accomplished botanical artist by this stage, her work was noticed for its beauty and accuracy by Samuel Curtis, the publisher of the Botanical Magazine. She created notable full-sized illustrations for Curtis's Botanical Magazine as well as for his other works, Monograph on the Genus Camellia (1819) and The Beauties of Flora. She was supported in her work by the architect Sir John Soane, who commissioned the watercolour The Flowers of Shakespeare (1835), which depicts a bust of the bard in Soane's collection surrounded by all the flowers mentioned in Shakespeare's works.

In 1807, Leigh married the actor and painter Alexander Pope, becoming his third wife. She taught painting, and her students included Princess Sophia of Gloucester and other members of the British aristocracy.
Pope died in London in 1838.