English Garden Flowers. 12 Colour Lithographs. (Signed by John Nash)

Inscribed by John Nash on front endpaper. “The twelve flowers illustrated here were drawn before the recent War, which interrupted the production of the book for many years. They have no point in common beyond the fact that they were all grown in my garden in Buckinghamshire. The soil in that particular part of the county was not a kindly one and, on demobilization, the wilderness that confronted me after five years of neglect was enough excuse for me to move to one of the small rich valleys of East Anglia and start another garden. Here, among others, the same company of twelve plants seems to have mobilized itself again, so that they must be in the nature of ‘favourite plants’.

I do not claim that these are strictly botanical drawings — that is a branch of flower-drawing often quite apart, a kingdom in which the botanist rules supreme and the artist can take few liberties. The artist’s interest in plants is chiefly expressed, I think, in his appreciation of their formal beauty and, in depicting this, some botanical details may well be disregarded.

It was thought that some notes should accompany the plates; these give each plant’s Natural Order and the date of its introduction to this country, as well as some observations on its appearance and cultivation.

August 1948
J.N.”

Condition: No dust-wrapper. Quarter cloth boards a little rubbed and worn to edges with foxing to rear panel. White cloth spine a little marked.