In Bloom is a Spring delight at the Ashmolean, Oxford
- timeless travels
- 12 hours ago
- 5 min read
By Theresa Thompson, Timeless Travels' Art Correspondent
Fiona Strickland (b. 1956). Tulipa ‘Blumex Parrot’, 2019. Watercolour on Kelmscott vellum, 28 x 41.1 cm. © Fiona Strickland, courtesy of the Shirley Sherwood Collection
What sublime good fortune that an exhibition about flowers and plants and how they changed our world opened in the very week that spring announced itself with such aplomb? Longer days, warming sun, unfurling leaves, and trees bursting into bloom put a spring in the step of one and all.
For visitors to the In Bloom exhibition at Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum there were pleasures still to come. Three galleries, over 100 exhibits, and stories at every turn. Stories of some of Britain’s most popular flowers, from tulips and roses to poppies, camellias and orchids; stories of the curiosity and discoveries of the early plant explorers, besides insights into the global networks of knowledge and trade that formed, made for a brilliant engrossing exhibition.
In the exhibition the story of plant collecting begins in the 17th century with the Tradescants, father-and-son gardeners in the employ of royalty and aristocracy. John Tradescant the Elder and the Younger travelled to the Low Countries, France, Russia and North America gathering new plant species and seeds to bring to England. In 1637, the younger Tradescant undertook the first of three ventures to the new colony of Virginia to, as he put it, “gather all rarities of flowers, plants, shells etc.” possibly on the king’s behalf.
Whilst seeking plants such as foreign varieties of apricots and quinces or new types of jasmine, lilac and gladioli, they also collected intriguing objects, “curiosities” they called them, that later became famous as their “cabinet of curiosities” better known as the Ark at the Tradescants’ home in South Lambeth, London. Later still, these objects were to form the Ashmolean’s founding collection.
The zeal for plant collecting took many forms, not only enriching great gardens, but also enriching the study of botany and in turn the need to label, classify and catalogue.
Paintings, drawings and prints by some of the greatest botanical artists - Rachel Ruysch, Maria Sibylla Merian, Georg Dionysius Ehret and Ferdinand Bauer among them – tell how artists and illustrators became essential to identifying species, comparing varieties and sharing information across borders. This period also saw the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus (1707–78) develop the binomial system of classification of plants (later, fauna as well as flora) that is still used today. An intriguing mezzotint of Linnaeus on view shows him dressed in traditional Sámi costume from his 1732 six-month long research expedition to Sápmi, then known as Lapland.
John Ruskin (1819–1900). Study of Wild Rose, 1871. Watercolour and bodycolour on paper. Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Mary Somerset, Duchess of Beaufort (1630-1715) had a great passion for botany. Not only was she the first to cultivate many tropical plants in English soil at her Badminton estate in Gloucestershire – her expertise sought by top botanists of the day - but she also became a prolific botanical cataloguer. She understood that identifying plants and cataloguing them using taxonomic systems was essential to understanding. A fourteen-volume herbarium – a collection of pressed plants for study – was among her many commissions (today, held at the Natural History Museum, London). Another commission, which is on display in the exhibition, is her Florilegium or illustrated flower book, open at an arresting image of a sulphurous yellow sunflower staring boldly out from the page. The vibrant watercolour was painted in 1703 in by Dutch artist Everard Kick.
Another bulky tome on view, gnarled and clearly much studied, is the herbarium Hortus Siccus of the first keepers of the Oxford Physic (now Botanic) Garden, Jacob Bobart the Elder (c1599-1680) and Jacob Bobart the Younger (1641-1719). It is open at page of dried and pressed plant specimens from 1660.
Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717) was also a pioneer, but of a different kind. The German artist, naturalist and explorer had travelled with her younger daughter to Surinam on the northeastern coast of South America, staying there from 1699-1701 in order to study the life cycle of insects; her particular interest was in butterfly metamorphosis. In some illustrations, she includes insects on the plants they would have eaten; an unusual practice at that time. For example, her lively hand-coloured etching of a banana blossom incorporates a Bulleye moth in all its life stages.
But moving from tales of discovery and the early development of systematic botany, in its second gallery the exhibition addresses commodification and consequences. It explores how the networks that shaped global trade also transformed landscapes, economies, and cultures; that the stories of collecting may also have been stories of destruction; a tree, for example, cut down in order to reach an orchid growing at the top.
In the central gallery, first we meet the famous collecting frenzy called 'Tulipomania'. This Dutch speculative bubble reached its height in the 1630s and saw rare tulip bulbs being sold at the cost of a canal-side house. Originally from the Islamic world, tulip cultivation was a point of pride at the Ottoman court. In some Dutch flower paintings, you can see the so-called ‘broken flowers’ that were prized by collectors for their streaked multi-coloured petals (a feature later discovered to be caused by a virus carried by fruit-tree aphids). Streaked tulips can be seen in all their decadent glory in Simon Verelst’s A Vase of Flowers painted around 1699, while adjacent, pioneer of Dutch still life floral painting, Ambrosius Bosschaert’s A Vase of Flowers (1609) sees white and pink tulips take centre stage.
Plate with roses and tulips, c. 1575. Iznik, Turkey. Fritware with underglaze polychrome painting, diameter 28 cm. Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
In contrast to these elaborate paintings, on display nearby are two simpler, superb Iznik plates from Turkey decorated with tulips and roses. Tulips, roses and carnations became hallmarks of Iznik ceramic ware in the mid-16th century.
In Victorian times ferns, orchids and rhododendrons all inspired their own collecting frenzies. A fun fact learnt from the exhibition: unfurling ferns may have been the inspiration for the swirly pattern on custard cream biscuits!
By now, some plants had become woven into everyday life. Tea, for instance, became integral to British identity. Having grown into a powerful commodity, its cultivation and trade had far-reaching economic and political effects. Likewise, the story of the opium poppy (Papaver somniferum); while probably most famous for being the source of the eponymous drug, the flowers were also cultivated for the seeds, as well as for ornament. Britain’s role in the opium trade, which contributed directly to the Opium Wars (1839-60), was a notoriously exploitative chapter in the nation’s history. Paraphernalia connected to the trade are shown in a cabinet, including a late 19th century Chinese carved wood model of opium smokers.
The exhibition ends with some new works by contemporary artists: for example, Anahita Norouzi, Kate Friend, Işık Güner, Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg and Justine Smith. Their artworks, some of which are uncannily topical, range from human-sized botanical drawings to spectacular tapestries designed from the perspective of pollinating insects.
There’s much to enjoy in In Bloom. Much to learn, to look at, enjoy and even to smell (the sweet scent of a Damask rose; the grassy scent of green tea and rich notes of black; the lingering smell of opium). From beautiful botanical paintings and drawings, to historical documents and curiosities, and new artworks, this exhibition is a fascinating tour-de-force.
Dr Francesca Leoni and Dr Shailendra Bhandare, co-curators of the exhibition, said: ‘In Bloom offers the rare chance to understand, appreciate and contemplate the histories of some of our best loved blooms. Unravelling stories of great scientific achievements, daredevil explorations and networks of exceptional individuals, it presents a vivid curatorial account of how our world was changed by our interactions with plants, through outstanding objects, with a conscious attempt at delivering an environmentally responsible exhibition.’
Who could ask for more?
In Bloom: How Plants Changed our World
Showing until: 16 August 2026.
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK
For events see: www.ashmolean.org/shaped-by-nature-season
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