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Victorian Botanical Painter Marianne North Travelled The World Alone Seeking Rare Plants

At a time when proper ladies did not travel unescorted, Marianne North (1830 to 1890) circumnavigated the globe solo. She visited multiple countries on 6 continents. Her quest was to find botanical species that had been rarely seen in their natural habitats. One genus and four species were named after her. Instead of a cell phone and iPad she carried sketchbooks, a field easel and paint supplies.

During her prime working years (1871 to 1885) North produced nearly 850 paintings representing more than 900 species of plants. Among them was the Victoria Regia giant water lily that eventually blossomed at Kew. She presented her body of work to the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew where she designed, financed and built a gallery to house her paintings. According to Kew.org the collection remains the only “permanent solo exhibition by a female artist in Britain” to this day.

The daughter of an affluent and influential family, she travelled extensively even as a child. She was trained in the suitably “ladylike” pursuits of singing and drawing from an early age. After her mother died in 1855, Marianne North continued travelling extensively with her father. She kept detailed journals that were published in Recollections Of A Happy Life.

Following are a few highlights from her happy life.

Marianne North Received A Comfortable Inheritance From Her Father

She abhorred the institution of marriage saying it turned women into ‘a sort of upper servant’. On her father’s death in 1869, she received a sizable inheritance that left her in a position to live her life as she pleased. She chose a life travelling the world unescorted in search of exotic plants and flowers to paint.

North Travelled Extensively Without A Companion

She travelled the world alone, often exploring areas unknown to Europeans. Her journeys included the interior of Brazil for a year and India for 18 months. She visited America, Canada, Jamaica, Tenerife, Japan, Singapore, Sarawak, Java, Sri Lanka, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, the Seychelles and Chile.

She sometimes began her trips with a companion but inevitably she went her own way. Her family’s political connections helped her in some cases with “letters of introduction” to ambassadors, ministers and other powerful people in countries she visited, but she soon disengaged from those people and found her way alone.

When Elizabeth Bisland and Nellie Bly raced the fictional Phileas Fogg around the world in 1889-90, most people still considered it improper for a lady to travel unescorted. Still, North helped pave the way for women who had a call to adventure.

North Was No Stranger To Discomfort

She might have been a comfortable heiress, but she was more than willing to endure rugged conditions without complaint. She did it while wearing long, cumbersome Victorian dresses.

In her diaries, she only briefly mentions extreme weather conditions from drenching rainstorms to scorching heat. Terrible roads and unsafe means of transportation barely fazed her. Spiders, leeches and vermin of all types became subjects in her paintings. She barely noted dismal accommodations in many distant locations.

Charles Darwin Respected Her Spirit

Clearly, North admired Charles Darwin and his work On the Origin of the Species among his many botanical works. Some people believe that it was Darwin who suggested that she visit Australia. On her return in 1881, she visited Down House to show the Darwins her paintings from Australia.

2nd August 1881 My Dear Miss North, – I am much obliged for the “Australian Sheep,” which is very curious. If I had I seen it from a yard’s distance lying on a table, I would have wagered that it was a coral of the genus Porites.

I am so glad that I have seen your Australian pictures, and it was extremely kind of you to call up with considerable vividness scenes in various countries which I have seen… and it is no small pleasure; but my mind in this respect must be a mere barren waste compared with your mind.

I remain, dear Miss North, yours, truly obliged, CHARLES DARWIN  

 Her Contribution To Science Was Significant

In her day, botanical illustrations were made meticulously on the white page. In contrast, her vibrant paintings portrayed plants in their natural habitat surrounded by humming birds, insects and structures like Buddhist temples. Her focus on the larger ecosystem in relation to the plants she painted was significant as people in the face of environmental devastation.

In the Official Guide to the North Gallery when it opened in 1882, Sir Joseph Hooker, Director of Kew Gardens, said that many of the environments in he paintings “are already disappearing, or are doomed shortly to disappear, before the axe and the forest fires and the flock, of the ever advancing settler or colonist.”

She Painted en plein air With Her Portable Easel

She started painting in watercolors. She had her first lessons in oil painting at age 37 from Robert Hawker Doling and she never looked back. In Visions of Eden: The Life and Work of Marianne North, she said, “I have never done anything else since, oil-painting being a vice like dram-drinking, almost impossible to leave off once it gets possession of one.”

She embraced painting en plein air which became infinitely more doable with the introduction of paints in tubes that appeared in the 1840s. North faced infinite challenges including weather, bugs, and changing light.

During the mid-19th century the box or field easel, became popular. Its telescopic legs and built-in paint box and palette certainly made it easier for Marianne North to paint in exotic locales.

The Gallery At Kew Gardens

When she returned from India, she showed her paintings in a gallery for two months. The show was so successful she wanted to find a permanent home for her life’s work. She asked Sir Joseph Hooker if he would agree to let her build a gallery at Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew.

The Marianne North Gallery opened to the public on 7th June 1881. As a condition of her bequest the paintings were to hang as a collection in the Gallery she funded and the design could not be altered. To this day, the paintings hang as she designed.

Coffee Anyone?

North designed the layout of her paintings along with the framing and installation. She adorned the walls with 246 wood samples from the various countries she visited. When Hooker would not allow her to offer coffee and tea to the visitors, she painted the doors with tea and coffee plants.

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