Ancient Artworks and Saffron’s Origin in Early Greece. Introduction From Greece to Iran, from paintings and dyes to spice and perfumes, saffron’s flavor and sparkly yellow color has made its trail in human history. As saffron crocus (Crocus sativus L.) can be traced in artworks across history, its appearance in various arts and crafts gives insights into saffron’s early geographic distribution and finally into its origin.
The Mediterranean is considered as the emergence site of many diploid Crocus species (Maw, 1886; Mathew, 1982), with Greece and Turkey possessing the highest number of Crocus taxa. Investigating ancient texts and artworks in these regions can help finding more information on early saffron domestication. Regarding ancient texts, the first use of the word “saffron” dates back to the 12th century to the old French term safran that consecutively originated from the Latin safranum, the Arabic za’farān, and the Persian zarparan with the meaning “gold strung” (Asbaghi, 1988). Figure 1. The Debated Origin of Saffron Crocus I. II. Frontiers | Ancient Artworks and Crocus Genetics Both Support Saffron’s Origin in Early Greece. Abstract Saffron crocus (Crocus sativus) is a male-sterile, triploid flower crop, and source of the spice and colorant saffron.
For over three millennia, it was cultivated across the Mediterranean, including ancient Greece, Persia, and other cultures, later spreading all over the world. Despite saffron crocus’ early omnipresence, its origin has been the matter of a century-old debate, in terms of area and time as well as parental species contribution.
While remnants of the ancient arts, crafts, and texts still provide hints on its origin, modern genetics has the potential to efficiently follow these leads, thus shedding light on new possible lines of descent. In this review, we follow ancient arts and recent genetics to trace the evolutionary origin of saffron crocus. We focus on the place and time of saffron domestication and cultivation, and address its presumed autopolyploid origin involving cytotypes of wild Crocus cartwrightianus. Introduction The Debated Origin of Saffron Crocus. Frontiers | Evolution of Root Morphology in Table Beet: Historical and Iconographic. Abstract The Beta vulgaris complex includes sugar beet, mangel wurzel, Swiss chard, fodder beet, and table beet. Mangel wurzel and fodder beet are considered to be the same general crop type, with the former possessing lower dry matter content (<13%) than the latter.
Mangel is likely derived from crosses between table beet and chard, while fodder beet may have a more recent origin, arising from crosses between mangel and sugarbeet. The table beet was derived from the wild sea beet, B. vulgaris (L.) subsp. maritima (L.) Introduction Beta vulgaris (L.) subsp. maritima (L.) Wild forms of Beta crops including Beta maritima possessed very slender roots which were not generally consumed as vegetables. Historical Background Botanical and Horticultural Origins Beta vulgaris subsp. maritima, the progenitor of the B. vulgaris complex, is found along the Mediterranean coast as well as the Atlantic coast into Scandinavia, throughout the Middle East, and in India, Iran, and Azerbaijan (; ).
Iconography. From Sacred Crop to Mr Potato Head: What Art Reveals About Our Relationship with Food. Few foods have had as many cultural lives as the potato. Ancient South Americans gave it spiritual meaning. European painters made it a symbol of rural labour and poverty. Governments turned it into propaganda, and modern society eventually transformed it into Mr Potato Head. Now, researchers have used these changing representations to ask an unusual question: can art reveal how our relationship with food has changed?
Food production systems worldwide sit at the centre of two critical challenges: feeding a growing population and reducing the environmental damage caused by agriculture. Researchers often argue that urbanisation has weakened people’s connection with farming. Earlier studies have shown that artworks can reveal the history of crops. For their research, recently published in Plants, People, Planet, they chose the potato. Rather than compiling every artwork featuring potatoes, the researchers selected a varied group of familiar and well-documented examples. @artherstory.bsky.social on Bluesky. @artherstory.bsky.social on Bluesky. @artherstory.bsky.social on Bluesky. Esther Inglis and “Little Beasts” – Esther Inglis (c1570-1624): Calligrapher, Artist, Embroiderer, Writer. The National Gallery of Art in Washington DC has recently opened an exhibition titled “Little Beasts; Art, Wonder, and the Natural World.”
I had my first slow walk-through yesterday and plan to return – maybe more than once! It’s a small but marvelous exhibition focusing on sixteenth and seventeenth-century artists from the Netherlands who became passionate and detailed observers of the natural world, especially butterflies, moths, shells, and insects, but also larger animals, often strange ones from foreign shores. As the Dutch developed an extensive mercantile trade, they came into contact with new and exotic objects, often obtained for them by the efforts of the native peoples in the countries they visited, many in South Asia. First focusing on Joris Hoefnagel (1542-1600), the exhibition details his working methods, and displays amazing examples from his watercolour series, “The Four Elements.”
Verhalen van Francis Blenke. @artherstory.bsky.social on Bluesky. (3) The Public Domain Review on X: "The Dutch anatomist Frederik Ruysch, known as the "The Artist of Death", met his own death #onthisday in 1731. Why the nickname? This engraving of one of his remarkable "still life" displays gives a clue. More in Luuc K. (1) Journal of Art in Society on X: "Deciphering an early-Renaissance painting ~ in this Annunciation by Petrus Christus (1445), the artist’s botanical precision enables us to identity of 12 varieties of plant, and their religious/social significance ~ se. @artherstory.bsky.social on Bluesky. @artherstory.bsky.social on Bluesky. Journal of Art in Society on X: "17th century artist Maria van Oosterwijck achieved fame and financial success during her lifetime, attracting numerous royal commissions, but was denied membership of the painters’ guild as she was a woman. Here's one of h.
Vase of Flowers and Conch Shell, by Anne Vallayer-Coster. Guest post by Kelsey Brosnan, PhD in Art History, Rutgers University On December 12, 2020, the Metropolitan Museum of Art reopened its European Paintings galleries, largely closed to the public for the past two years. One of the newly reinstalled spaces highlights the work of female artists of eighteenth-century France: portraits by Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, Adélaïde Labille-Guiard, Marie Denise Villiers, Marie Victoire Lemoine—and a single still-life painting by Anne Vallayer-Coster (1744–1818).
The Met’s Vase of Flowers and Conch Shell (Figure 2) represents two subjects for which Vallayer-Coster is best known: flowers and shells. This painting was likely part of a trio of ovular canvases that Vallayer-Coster submitted to the Parisian Salon of 1781, each pairing a bouquet of flowers with delicate accessories. Vallayer-Coster’s contemporaries debated these “seductive” qualities in her work, while emphasizing the modesty and charm of the artist herself. Ah! L’Académicienne “Mme. Dr. (10) CienciaConArte |Ccª| on X: "Rachel Ruysch (1664-1750). Pintora de flores entre el arte y la ciencia. Representaba las especies botánicas en bodegones, como si estuvieran en la naturaleza, rodeadas de mariposas, saltamontes y otros insectos. Pintaba p.
Dendrochronology – Robert Moor. Dutch Artist Alida Withoos as a Painter and Botanical Illustrator. Guest post by Catherine Powell, University of Texas at Austin & Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society Alida Withoos thrived as still life painter and botanical illustrator during the late seventeenth century in the Dutch Republic. As a member of a family of artists, Withoos developed her own style and had a successful career. She became part of a significant network of artists and botanical experts and amateurs. Although today we know little about her life, Alida Withoos contributed to some of the most important botanical artistic projects of her time. Many Withoos, only one Alida Alida Withoos was born between 1659 and 1661, the second daughter and fourth child of the painter Matthias Withoos (1627–1703).
When Alida was still young, the French invaded the Dutch Republic, during the so-called Year of Disaster of 1672 (Rampjaar). A notable father Matthias Withoos, Alida’s father, was a well-known and respected painter. In the steps of Matthias Imitating nature A monumental project. Moninckx atlas, Moninckx, J., vol. 1-9 (1682) Maria Moninckx. Dutch artist (1673–1757) Maria Moninckx (22 April 1673 (baptised) - 26 February 1757 (buried)) was a Dutch botanical artist and painter, best known for the colour plates she and her father, Jan Moninckx, created and which make up the nine-volume Moninckx Atlas.
This was published in the period 1686-1709 and depicted 420 plants from the Hortus Medicus of Amsterdam. She was born in The Hague and died in Amsterdam. In 1682 Joan Huydecoper II and Jan Commelin took the initiative in establishing a new Hortus Medicus in Amsterdam. It differed from the herb garden at the Binnengasthuis insofar as it also grew ornamental plants and would function as a Hortus Botanicus.
Huydecoper was mayor of Amsterdam and had great influence with the Dutch East India Company, while Commelin was a merchant in herbs and pharmaceuticals. Both men were well known as enthusiastic and knowledgeable gardeners. This led to the creation of one of the richest plant collections in Europe.
Still Life: Depicting Nature from Woodcuts to… | The Linnean Society. Object of the Week: Ivor Abrahams, Sundial Summer (c.1975) - Garden Museum. Furber's Flowers. 1.For more information on the life of John Custis see Aaron Lovejoy and A production of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Department of Archaeology, The Custis Family Migration; Josephine Little Zuppan, “John Custis of Williamsburg, 1678-1749,” The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 90, No. 2 (April 1982), pp. 177-197; and Custis and Zuppan, The letterbook of John Custis IV of Williamsburg, 1717-1742 (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005). 2.Custis and Zuppan, The Letterbook of John Custis IV of Williamsburg, 1717-1742 (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005), pp. 140-141. 3.Thomas Lee, Stratford Hall, Westmoreland County, Virginia, Westmoreland County Records 4 1756-1767 p. 76-79, Taken: August 17, 1758, Recorded August 29, 1758.
An Inventory and appraisement of the Estate of the Late President the Honorable Colo. Thomas Lee of Stratford in Virginia the Estate in Westmoreland County August 17th, 1758, p, 2. 4. 6. " 7.Clayton, The English Print, 134. 11. " 12. 13.Kevin J. (9) NHM Library and Archives on X: "□The 1st of June is here, and welcoming us into the summer months is the page for #June from Robert Furber's (1674-1756) 'The Twelve Months of Flowers'. □□□ View this collection online by following this link:
Life cycle of the flowering plants - The Linnaean Gardens of Uppsala - Uppsala University, Sweden. Horologium Florae - The Linnaean Gardens of Uppsala - Uppsala University, Sweden. March 2013: Linnaeus’ Floral Clock | The Linnean Society. Spring is in the air, and we can see early spring flowers opening to attract dozy bumble-bees and other insects. Wood Anemone (Anemone nemorosa), for instance, definitely gets a head-start before the rest of the vegetation catches up – its beautiful, star-like white flowers attract flies and beetles that eat its pollen. And although we are all familiar with the concept of certain flowers blooming at certain times of the year, flowers have an even more sophisticated inner clock. So sophisticated, in fact, that we could use them to tell what time it is. Carl Linnaeus observed over a number of years that certain plants consistently opened and closed their flowers at particular times of the day, these times varying from species to species.
Here, Linnaeus differentiated two groups of flowers: Naturally, only the latter are useful for a flower clock. Linnaeus probably did not plant a flower clock himself, but, as usual, made accurate observations on many different plants in different habitats. Planting a Clock That Tracks Hours by Flowers.
The professionals said it could not be done. They had never tried it, and they didn’t know any public garden that had tried it, and they wouldn’t recommend anyone else give it a try. This was not the response I expected when I called a few plant people and asked how to design a type of flower bed that has been around since the mid-18th century. It’s called a Horologium Florae: a flower clock. (No relation to the Apple Watch.) “Please don’t show this to my bosses,” said Marc Hachadourian, the director of the Nolen Greenhouses, a 43,000-square-foot grow facility at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx. He was joking. At this point, clock-watchers may want to skip ahead to the useful flowering timetable in the second half of this article. Here’s how the timepiece works. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Linnaeus's flower clock.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Linnaeus's flower clock was a garden plan hypothesized by Carl Linnaeus that would take advantage of several plants that open or close their flowers at particular times of the day to accurately indicate the time.[1][2] According to Linnaeus's autobiographical notes, he discovered and developed the floral clock in 1748.[3] It builds on the fact that there are species of plants that open or close their flowers at set times of day. He proposed the concept in his 1751 publication Philosophia Botanica, calling it the horologium florae (lit. 'flower clock').[4] His observations of how plants changed over time are summarised in several publications. Calendarium florae (the Flower Almanack) describes the seasonal changes in nature and the botanic garden during the year 1755.
The plants suggested for use by Linnaeus are given in the table below, ordered by recorded opening time; "-" signifies that data are missing. [7] Cultural references to the concept[edit] Spring flowers | Europeana.