Jane Loudon was one of the first women accepted as a horticulturalist and not just a pretty picture painter. Born in 1807 sjhe was left penniless at seventeen with the death of her father. She supported herself by writing romantic fiction which caught the attention of John Loudon, a noted naturalist and publisher, who met and married her.
Jane Loudon became fascinated with plants and their relationship to each other. Her botanical illustrations show plants grouped together much as you would gather them in a garden or field. The Ladies Flower Garden of Ornamental Annuals was published in 1840. The images you will see here are from her second study in 1841 (The Ladies Flowwer Garden of Ornamental Bulbous Plants). Subsequently she produced two other studies: The Ladies Flower Garden of Ornamental Perennials and The Ladies Flower Garden of Ornamental Greenhoouse Plants. These beautiful hand colored stone lithographs are among the finest of the nineteenth century botanical illustrations produced.
