Augusta Pownall

The British countryside in prints and paper-cuts

A review of Of Green Leaf, Bird and Flower, by Elizabeth R. Fairman. The images are mostly astounding but the essays are a mixed bag

Left: ‘Blackbere’ from Helmingham Herbal and Bestiary, c. 1500. Right: Common Hoopoe, c. 1789, by William Lewis 
issue 26 July 2014

The Yale Center for British Art holds the largest collection of British art outside the UK. An impressive collection it is too, largely bequeathed by Paul Mellon of the American banking dynasty. He holidayed in England as a child before the first world war and, having developed a taste for ‘dappled tan cows in soft green fields’, began acquiring British works on natural history as a young man.

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