Flora Indica: Recovering the lost histories of Indian botanical art

Last week, I had the pleasure of visiting the Flora Indica exhibition at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. The exhibition, co-curated by Dr Henry Noltie and Dr Sita Reddy, showcases 52 works of botanical art by Indian artists, which have never before been published or exhibited. The paintings, now held in the Kew collection, were commissioned between 1790 and 1850 by East India Company botanists with the aim of investigating and documenting India’s incredibly diverse flora. They are luminescent, breathtakingly beautiful, detailed beyond belief — and only a very small fraction of the thousands of such paintings commissioned under Company rule.

Growing up as I did in Kolkata, the Calcutta Botanic Garden (now the AJC Bose Indian Botanic Garden) was an intrinsic part of my life. I was somewhat familiar with its history, and the names of its early superintendents — William Roxburgh and Nathaniel Wallich amongst them — who commissioned these drawings were familiar, and known for their contribution to the modern study of Indian flora. Though I knew about the botanic paintings, and that some, at least, are held in collections in Kolkata, it was practically impossible to access them. It is only recently, with the increase in interest in such art in India, that I could see some of these paintings, though always as prints or illustrations in books or periodicals. There was even less information available about the Indian artists who painted them. As was so often the case, even with commissioned work under Company rule or the British Raj, the artists remained anonymous, their contribution unknown. In this case too, many of the commissioned paintings are unsigned — though to give credit where it is due, efforts were made, particularly by Nathaniel Wallich, to record the names of the artists.

The Kew exhibition is a major step in making these paintings and those who painted them known to a wider world. The exhibition celebrates not only the paintings, but also the artists who painted them. All of the paintings on display are not signed. But those that are signed, or where the artist is known, those paintings are accompanied by whatever biographical information is available. Unfortunately, such information is very sparse — the artists have left no personal documents behind, except a letter by the artist Vishnuprasad to Wallich, requesting a transfer from Saharanpur to the Calcutta Botanic Gardens.

The exhibition ends April 12th. If you are anywhere close to Kew, and can possibly manage it, do visit — the paintings are worth the effort.

The images here are taken from Vols 1 and 2 of Nathaniel Wallich’s Plantae Asiaticae Rariores, published in 1830-31. They were not part of the exhibition, but give an idea of the delicate beauty and intricate detail that distinguished the work of the botanical painters of India.

Both paintings are by Gorachand (whose name can be seen in tiny letters at the bottom left).