Familiar Indian Flowers

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An exceptional and near fine copy of the increasingly rare and highly desired account of Indian flora compiled by an Indian-born writer, scientific and botanical illustrator Lena Lowis (1845-1919). This remarkable firsthand account of flowers grown and cultivated in Indian gardens stands out as a significant floral treatise compiled by a woman born to a British Indian Army officer stationed in India. Notably, the work was not devoted to native plants but rather, colorful flowers cultivated in gardens throughout the colonial empire, unlike the rather contemporary accounts of native specimens by noted women compilers of herbs and ferns viz., Mrs Jaffreys (see our example of the Fern Album of Darjeeling from the 1880s).

Mrs Lowis was the daughter of Sir Richmond Campbell Shakespear (1812-1861), an Indian-born British Indian Army officer, who had married Marian Sophia Thompson at Agra, India on 5 March 1844 (Source: Wikipedia). She was married to Lt.-Col. Ninian Lowis (1838–1914).

First edition, 4to, original buckram cloth, all edges gilt; 30 exquisite chromolithograph plates of Indian flowers drawn by Lena Lowis, lithographed by D. Blair, and printed by the lithographic firm of M. & N. Hanhart. Each page is accompanied by descriptive text of the flowers and the corresponding plants.

Condition– Near Fine, in unmarked and bright internal condition, housed in a fitted clamshell box.

Title: Familiar Indian Flowers

Publisher: Published for the Author by Reeve and Co., London

Publication Date: 1878

Binding: Original hardcover

Condition: Near Fine

Edition: First