Bouquet of Tulip, Peonies, and a Branch from an Apple Tree

Botanical illustrators working in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries devoted themselves to the medicinal qualities of plants and sought to render plant structure and function as precisely as they could. Later, European explorers brought specimens back from exotic locales, and artists carefully reproduced them for an audience fascinated by new discoveries. By the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, artists had shifted their emphasis from scientific illustration to the innate beauty of the plant or flower. The Minneapolis Institute of Art is fortunate to possess an impressive collection of more than 2, 000 botanical prints and drawings, among them works by Pierre-Joseph Redouté, Jean Louis Prévost, Priscilla Susan Bury, and Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer.