Welcome to the Hampton Court Palace Florilegium Society
The Hampton Court Palace Florilegium Society on-line archive shows all the paintings in the collection since it was founded, in 2004, by a group of artists who had gained the Diploma in Botanical Painting from the English Gardening School (EGS), under the tutorship of Anne-Marie Evans.
In 2005, Helen Allen took up the reins as the EGS Course Director, and has continued as Course Director after the name of the School changed to The Chelsea School of Botanical Art in 2014. She maintains close links with the Florilegium and her Diploma students continue to add to the membership of the Florilegium.
Botanical painting has a long tradition, going back more than 2000 years, as a way of recording information to aid botanists and herbalists in the identification of plants for medicinal purposes. Later, artists such as Ehret, Bauer and Redoute began to paint rare and beautiful specimens of the plants in collections belonging to wealthy patrons and collectors throughout Europe. These collections are known as Florilegia. These paintings were sometimes bound into books and reproduced in order to be sold to other collectors and institutions.
The Society aims to establish an Archive of botanically correct paintings and drawings of the plants growing in the gardens and glasshouses of Hampton Court Palace.
Included in the many plants of interest, at Hampton Court Palace, is the famous ‘Great Vine’ planted in the 18th Century and, most importantly, the historic 17th Century Queen Mary II Exotiks Collection which includes a large collection of Citrus.
