A selection of flower subjects includes the fine hand-colored engravings from the “Botanical Almanac” of 1611 and 18th-century Dutch still life oils. For sheer bravura of linear beauty, such botanical illustrations are unrivaled within the print tradition. Their rigorous attention to detail and insistence on accuracy of rendering meet esthetic as well as scientific demands.

Dutch flower paintings of the late 17th and 18th centuries, including a particularly fine one by Jan van Os, are especially admirable. Meticulous overpainting of translucent jewel-tone colors on top of murky underpainting takes into account the normal, illusory process of seeing.

––Virginia Allen