JAN 28-GOA: Flora Indica -- Recovering Lost Stories of Indian Botanical Art (Henry Noltie)

[Frederick Noronha]

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About the talk
For 30 years Henry Noltie worked at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh as a taxonomist, curator and historian. As a taxonomist he specialised in the grasses, rushes and sedges of the Sino-Himalaya and wrote two volumes of the Flora of Bhutan. During this work he became interested in the history of the Garden’s rich collections of 500,000 Indian herbarium specimens and related botanical drawings made by Indian artists.

This talk is based on the exhibition (and related book, shortly to come out in an Indian edition by Roli) that Henry Noltie has co-curated with Dr Sita Reddy, on show at the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew until April 2026. The exhibition contains 52 drawings by Indian artists made for EIC patrons in northern India between 1790 and 1850. One of the major lost stories has been to recover, where possible, the names of the artists who made this exquisite work.

[Hat-tip to Shyamal L for sharing the link. -FN]