Vintage Art Appreciation: Purple crocuses, cloth of gold crocus, liverwort, poppy anemones and jay, c1650

I give you this to take with you:
Nothing remains as it was.
If you know this, you can begin again,
with pure joy in the uprooting.
― Judith Minty, Letters to My Daughters
About the painting: A page of watercolours depicting seven plants and a dead Jay. The plants are two Purple crocuses (Crocus vernus Hill), a crocus from Susa (Crocus susianus Ker-Gawler), double-form liverwort (Hepatica nobilis Miller 'Caerulea Plena'), and two poppy anemones (Anemone coronaria L.). The Eurasian Jay (Garrulus glandarius) appears to cast a shadow on the sheet, as though a real bird has fallen onto a page of painted flowers.

About the artist: Alexander Marshal (c. 1620-1682) was a talented horticulturalist, entomologist and amateur artist. He was one of a network of gardeners working in and around London in the middle of the seventeenth century, and had links with the Tradescants (who had a garden at Lambeth) and Henry Compton (who, as Bishop of London, developed a fine garden at Fulham Palace). Marshal’s careful study of plants was combined with an examination of the science of painting and he wrote in 1667 to the Secretary of the Royal Society to discuss the methods he used for making pigments. The colours in Marshal’s paintings do indeed remain impressively bright over 350 years later.

Source: Original painting and full article as it appears on the Royal Collection Trust (UK) website here.

To download my digitally enhanced version of the above painting as a 5" x 7" @ 300 ppi JPEG, please click here.


Digitally enhanced reproductions of public domain fine art are shared under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Printable Vintage Art: Crow on a Roundpole Fence by Bruno Liljefors

Crow on a Roundpole Fence, 1887
by Bruno Liljefors (1860–1939)

☀ ☁ ☀ ☁ ☀
Roads Go Ever On

Roads go ever ever on,
Over rock and under tree,
By caves where never sun has shone,
By streams that never find the sea;
Over snow by winter sown,
And through the merry flowers of June,
Over grass and over stone,
And under mountains in the moon.

Roads go ever ever on,
Under cloud and under star.
Yet feet that wandering have gone
Turn at last to home afar.
Eyes that fire and sword have seen,
And horror in the halls of stone
Look at last on meadows green,
And trees and hills they long have known.

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way,
Where many paths and errands meet.

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with weary feet,
Until it joins some larger way,
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.

The Road goes ever on and on
Out from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone.
Let others follow, if they can!
Let them a journey new begin.
But I at last with weary feet
Will turn towards the lighted inn,
My evening-rest and sleep to meet.
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

Painting originally found on Wikimedia. Digitally enhanced version of the painting as an 11" x 8" @ 300 ppi JPEG here.


Digitally enhanced reproductions of public domain fine art are shared under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Printable Vintage Art: Swans by Bruno Liljefors

Swans, 1918
by Bruno Liljefors (1860–1939)

There was something in the clear, pine-scented air of that winter morning that seemed to bring him back his joyousness and his ardour for life.
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

He thought that she looked like Winter; meaning both the girl he had once known and the season. He had always believed that winter's beauty deepened further into the season, when the memory of fall and the promise of spring were stripped away and there was nothing to do but accept the day-in, day-out reality of what winter entailed. This was what he thought when he looked at her: that the embattled woman before him was a wonder to behold, and, as much as he wished he might have spared her the pain of the last eleven years, it contributed to her spellbinding presence.
― Ben Spencer, Many Savage Moons

Painting originally found on Wikimedia. Digitally enhanced version of the painting as a 10" x 8" @ 300 ppi JPEG here.


Digitally enhanced reproductions of public domain fine art are shared under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Vintage Art Appreciation: God's Care by Mihael Stroj

God's Care, 1842
by Mihael Stroj (1803–1871)

Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you,
and to give thanks continuously.
And because all things have contributed to your advancement,
you should include all things in your gratitude.
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

Think big. Pray bigger. Grace is at work for you in ways you're too human to understand.
― Andrena Sawyer

Even when you don't see Him working, He's busy working on your behalf.
Forever grateful for God's grace!
― Yvonne Pierre, The Day My Soul Cried: A Memoir
Painting originally found on Wikimedia. Digitally enhanced version of the painting as a 7" x 5" @ 300 ppi JPEG here.


Digitally enhanced reproductions of public domain fine art are shared under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Free Vintage Nature Poem: The Birds by Pierre-Jean de Béranger

The Bird Charmer, 1873
by Léon Bazille Perrault (1832 – 1908)

Happy who for a season may
Absent themselves on buoyant wing!
The birds that Winter drives away
Will surely come again with Spring.
They of our ills will mindful be,
And when at length the storm has passed,
They will return to this same tree
Which has so often felt the blast.
Then to our fertile vale will they
A more auspicious presage bring!
The birds that Winter drives away
Will surely come again with Spring.
― Pierre-Jean de Béranger, The Birds (translated from the French by Percy Reeve)