Physical description
A twig from a walnut tree: the fruit is brownish green, the shell brown, the kernel grey-white with light brown skin, there is a separate kernel at the bottom, on the left, deep brown.
Date
ca. 1575 (painted)
Artist/maker
Le Moyne de Morgues, Jacques, born 1533 - died 1588 (painter)
Materials and Techniques
water-colour and body-colours
Marks and inscriptions
Numbered '50' in brown ink on the top right corner
Dimensions
Height: 10.75 in, Width: 7.50 in
Object history note
Purchased in 1856 (Lugt 2503). No record of previous history.
Historical context note
The present drawing belongs to an album of 59 botanical watercolours depicted on 33 sheets of paper, some of these being double-sided, and attributed to Jacques Lemoyne de Morgues. The present work shows a twig from the walnut tree, with both a halved and a whole walnut.
The drawings from this series were acquired in 1856 as one of the first purchases of the V&A, almost by accident, and solely because they were bound up in an extremely fine French late-16th-century brown calf binding.
Although Lemoyne has been long considered as an obscure artist providing designs for simple woodcuts, he was recognised at the beginning of the 20th century as one of the most remarkable early botanical painters.
The V&A binding and the inscriptions on the drawings in both French and Latin suggest that the series was probably made in France around 1575. Lemoyne left the Continent to London where he settled shortly before1580. The V&A album can be compared with another album, reputed to have been made around 1585 in England, and now in the British Museum.
Another group of 27 sheets stylistically close and on similar paper to the V&A watercolours appeared on the market in 2004, followed by a bound florilegium with eighty drawings in an 18th-century French mottled calf gilt and lettered ‘anno 1770’ in 2005.(See Sotheby's, New York, 21 January 2004, lots 29-55 and Sotheby's, New York, 26 January 2005, lot 46.) A highly finished group of six gouaches on vellum on blue and gold background were sold from the Korner collection in 1997 (Sotheby's, New York, January 29, 1997, lots 55-60).
The interest in plants for their medicinal properties and religious symbolism was well anchored since the Middle Ages in Western Europe. A great number of manuscripts were beautifully illuminated with flowers and plants, echoing an interest that goes back to the Antiquity. However this impressive album of botanical watercolours shows a renewed curiosity for the flora from both a scientific and an aesthetic point of view.
In this respect, Lemoyne de Morgues’ representations of plants and insects, which show a particular attention to details and a great sense of realism, can be seen as a forerunner of such projects as the Museum Chartaceum (Latin for ‘Paper Museum’), made by Cassiano dal Pozzo (1588-1657)who commissioned to minor and major artists a vast collection of drawings recording, among others, natural history subjects (see V&A E.731-1949 to E.735-1949, E.2776-1962 to E.2777-1962, E.426-2009 to E.428-2009, and E.1026-2011 – and also Royal Library, Windsor Castle, and British Museum, London).
Descriptive line
Watercolour, A twig from the walnut tree, with both a halved and a whole walnut, attributed to Jacques Lemoyne de Morgues, French school, ca. 1575
Bibliographic References (Citation, Note/Abstract, NAL no)
Paul Hulton, The Work of Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues, A Huguenot Artist in France, Florida and England, vol. I, London, 1977, p. 161 The following is the full text of the entry: 28. Walnut Plate 31a Walnut, Juglans regia L. The fruit is brownish green, the shell brown, the kernel grey-white with light brown skin, the separate kernel at the bottom, on the left, deep brown. Watercolours and bodycolours with oxidisation on the kernel; 264 x 180 mm (sight); 10 ⅜ x 7 ⅛ in. Numbered 50. AM.3267CC-1856 LITERATURE: Savage (1922), (1923).
Spencer Savage, ‘The discovery of some of Jacques Le Moyne’s botanical drawings’ in The Gardeners’ Chronicle, 3rd s., vol. LXXI (1922)
Spencer Savage, ‘Early botanical painters. No. 3. – Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues’ in The Gardeners’ Chronicle, 3rd s., vol. LXXIII (1923)
Lionel Lambourne, Portraits of Plants: Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues (1533- 1588), London (undated)
Materials
Gouache; Water-colour
Subjects depicted
Walnut
Collection code
PDP
