A Garden of Botanical Art at the Badminton Estate

About

In 1703 Mary Somerset, the first Duchess of Beaufort, commissioned Everard Kik, a Dutch botanical artist, to create a series of paintings showing the extraordinary variety of plants she had grown from seeds sent to her from all over the world. The final collection of 178 paintings, including many by Mary’s footman-turned-artist Daniel Frankcom, and some possibly by Mary herself, were later bound in a two volume album, a “florilegium” which has been kept at Badminton House, Gloucestershire, where Mary lived and grew many of her plants. The florilegium has remained at Badminton for more than 300 years and most of the paintings have never been seen publicly before this exhibition.

From September 8th-15th 2024 there will be an exhibition of 30 reproductions of some of the finest paintings from the florilegium at Badminton House, as well as an opportunity to view the originals in their bound volumes. There will also be a sale of limited edition copies of some of the paintings, which demonstrate not only the range of plants grown in Mary’s gardens but how her influence was both scientific and cultural. Many of the specimens she raised are now stalwarts of British gardening and echoes of her early interests can be seen in the gardens and glass houses at Badminton today, and in our continuing fascination with the botanical world. As she once wrote: “When I get into storys of plants, I know not how to get out.”