Province of Utrecht

Part 1: Drawn & painted plants

Berthe Hoola van Nooten was a botanical artist from Utrecht with a keen eye for color and form. In 1856, at the invitation of her brother, Berthe left for Batavia (present-day Jakarta), where she taught children in what was known as the Dutch East Indies until 1945.

At the request of the management of the National Botanical Garden in Buitenzorg (now Kebun Raya Bogor), south of Batavia, she was commissioned in 1860 to draw flowers and plants.

During that period, Hoola van Nooten began the botanical illustrations that would culminate in her famous work Fleurs, Fruits et Feuillages Choisis de L'Île de Java, Peints d'après Nature, 1863.

The palace in Buitenzorg was at the time the residence of the Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies. In 1817, the Government of the Dutch East Indies had established the National Botanical Garden directly next to the palace garden—a colonial experimental garden. The first director, the botanist Caspar Georg Carl Reinwardt, gathered more than nine hundred different plant species there over a period of five years.

With her refined powers of observation, Hoola van Nooten managed to immortalize forty exotic plants in vibrant colors.

Book: Selected Flowers, Fruits and Foliage from the Island of Java, Painted from Nature, 1863.

With thanks to Wageningen University & Research (WUR)

A descendant of a noble Utrecht family that owned Drakensteijn Castle in Lage Vuursche. As a VOC administrator on the Malabar Coast in South India, he worked from 1678–1693 with the Indian Ayurvedic physician Itty Achudan and local draftsmen and scholars on the Garden of Malabar (Hortus Indicus Malabaricus) – a monumental work in which 740 plant species are described and illustrated, along with their Ayurvedic and medical applications.

As a VOC administrator, Van Rheede was part of a colonial system in which slavery was commonplace; he established rules for the treatment of enslaved people, but did not question the system itself.

The book is regarded as an early and remarkable example of intercultural scientific cooperation, in which European and Indian knowledge of plants complement each other.

Book: Hortus Indicus Malabaricus (Garden of Malabar) 1678–1693

With thanks to the Royal Library (KB) The Hague.

Dutch engraver, draftsman, and print publisher who spent a large part of his life in Utrecht.

He learned the trade from his father, Crispijn van de Passe the Elder, a renowned artist of the time with a workshop in Utrecht.

Van de Passe created not only portraits, but also engravings with biblical and historical subjects, as well as illustrations for books.

In the first half of the seventeenth century, manor houses, bulbs, and tubers were unprecedentedly popular. At that time, snowdrops, tulips, hyacinths, and other bulbs were sought-after collector's items for the owners of country estates.

During that period, the Hortus Floridus, 1614 (Dutch edition: Den Blom-Hof) was published, at the time one of the most famous flower books in Europe, which sold well. The work contains nearly 175 engravings of, among others, tuberous and bulbous plants, which were often hand-colored by the owner or a professional artist.

This beautiful and influential book enjoyed great success and appeared, alongside the original Latin edition, in Dutch, French, and English translations.

Although the book occupies an important place in Dutch cultural history, it is hardly known to the general public.

Book: Hortus Floridus, 1614

With thanks to: Utrecht University

Flower goddess of the Low Countries on the Vecht.

Cultivating the first European pineapple is not her only achievement and contribution to science. She claimed that she had grown more than two hundred seeds to maturity in a single year.

She was so well-informed about the latest scientific botanical developments and possessed specialist literature in various languages. She approached botany in a scientific manner and had her own collection meticulously documented. About twenty artists were commissioned to capture the plants and flowers she cultivated from life in approximately 400 watercolors.

Country estate Vijverhof on the Vecht near Nieuwersluis (now Flora Batava) was therefore not just a random collection of artists, but a select group of experienced botanical artists.

Among the artists were: Pieter Withoos, Alida Withoos, Maria Sybilla Merian, Pieter Holsteyn II, Johannes Bronkhorst, Herman Hengstenburgh, Herman Saftleven, Maria Monickx, Jan Monickx, Johanna Helena Herolts-Graff (daughter of Maria Sybilla Merian), & Otto Marseus van Schrieck.

Agnes contributed to the Monickx Atlas, among others.