Hand colouring

One of the most valued attributes of a scientific illustration in the eighteenth-century was colour, which at that time was painstakingly applied by hand.
Listen to this episode to hear Georgia discuss the illustrations in two remarkable books - one about plants and one about insects - then head to Kura Heritage Collections Online to browse all the images.

Ngā Pātaka Kōrero - Auckland Libraries · Meet a Rare Book - Hand colouring

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Figures of beautiful, useful, and uncommon plants, 1809.

This image of a night-flowering cactus is one of 150 illustrations published to accompany Philip Miller’s The gardener’s dictionary, each printed from a copper plate engraving then individually coloured by hand by a watercolour painter.

Philip Miller. Figures of beautiful, useful, and uncommon plants, 1809. Click to see in detail on Kura Heritage Collections Online.

An exposition of English insects, 1782.

Moses Harris drew, engraved and hand coloured all the butterflies, moths, and dragonflies in his book about English insects, including the ones seen here in this fantastical frontispiece.

Moses Harris. An exposition of English insects, 1782. Click to see in detail on Kura Heritage Collections Online.

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Hand colouring

See the books

Figures of beautiful, useful, and uncommon plants, 1809.

An exposition of English insects, 1782.

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Kura Heritage Collections Online

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