Floral Portraits

Florilegium ‘a collection of literary extracts; an anthology’.

The term florilegium is derived from Medieval Latin – flos (flower) and legere (to gather) literally a gathering of flowers. There are many famous examples of florilegias from around the world. Joseph Banks and Basileus Besler are just two of many who documented the plants found on their travels or in their gardens.

In medieval times, florilegia was applied to ornamental flowers rather than medicinal ones which were covered by ‘herbals’. With developments in printing and the introduction of new plants into Europe, wealthy landowners began to record their collections in books – Florilegia. Essentially these were studies of botanically accurate paintings of plants, done by plant illustrators from life.Today Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, London; The Royal Botanic gardens of Sydney and Melbourne and others all hold their own florilegiums of botanic art documenting their plants.

The Floral Portraits are Annie's personal florilegium project documenting the flowers grown in her garden. They are part of an ongoing series featuring individual or groups of flowers. What is choosen to plant is informed by Annie's research into Victorian era gardens, there are many English plants including poppies, roses, and tulips, amongst others. Annie collects the flowers and photographs them creating a visual record of what grows here.

Together with the images, she recalls and records the history of these flowers as she is fascinated by the journeys they have taken, usually thousands of miles from where they originate. Often she incorporates the Victorian Language of Flowers within the portraits to convey secret messages to the viewer.