Ellen Hutchins:
Botanical Artist
Ellen attached great value to an accurate drawing and made hundreds of drawings of seaweeds from Bantry Bay and shared them with fellow botanists. Some of her drawings were used in botanical publications of the period. Botanical art remains incredibly valuable to science in providing detailed and accurate plant portraits.
If you are familiar with Ellen’s story, read this page for more about her botanical art. If you’d like an introduction to Ellen’s story focusing on her as a botanical artist, the paper, ‘She painted seaweeds from the seashore’ written for the Bantry Historical Society provides that. See here.
Success for Ellen’s ‘very first’
‘I had great pleasure in finding Fucus tomentosus with fruit. I enclose a fragment to show you how beautiful it is in that state. I have got some laid out on glass that will I hope enable you to see its manner of growth and its little capsules but fearing that drying may alter its appearance I have attempted to draw it as it appeared when recent.’ Ellen Hutchins to Dawson Turner 27th July 1808
On 2nd December, she wrote
‘Dear Sir, Your most interesting letter found me employed finishing the drawing you wished for of Fucus tomentosus. I have sent it with drawings of some Confervae. You must not expect very much from me for alas my trembling hand has not “the ease which marks security to please”. These are the very first that I have attempted.’ Ellen to Dawson Turner 2nd December 1808
Ellen was quoting from Walter Scott’s long narrative poem, The Lay of the Last Minstrel, published in 1805. The poem was a significant step in the romantic revival, and immensely popular at the time. The Last Minstrel, in old age, and out of favour,
‘When to tune his harp he tried,
His trembling hand had lost the ease
Which marks security to please.’
‘Let me in the first place thank you for your drawings, of which I should be sorry to say anything that might lead you to doubt any sincerity; but, most seriously, I admire their execution as well as prize them for the sake of the artist. You feel that your hand, like the Minstrel’s, lacks ‘the ease’ that marks security to please; you will only be the more qualified at finding, like him, what approbation attends your endeavour. Your F. tomentosus will be very soon engraved. The others, I am sorry to say, seem doomed ‘to blush unseen’ in my portfolios, but they shall not be wholly lost. I trust you will not fail to cultivate this art, without which it is scarcely possible to study the Conferva with success; and you will find that the slightest pencil sketch in a letter will often convey a better idea than the most laboured description. Let me advise you also, if the trouble is not too much, to sketch the leaves of the mosses you examine under your microscope. It saves a prodigious deal of trouble. I only wish I could lend you my own copy of the Muscologia Hibernica to copy what is there done.’ Dawson Turner to Ellen 8th January 1809
Dawson Turner used the drawing of Fucus tomentosus as the first illustration in Volume 3 of his book, Historia Fucorum. The Royal Botanic Gardens Kew has Turner’s own copy of the book into which he had bound the original drawings above the engravings of them. We assume that he had done the same with Muscologia Hibernica (Mosses of Ireland), and that is why he wanted to lend it to Ellen.
Later on it is clear from the letters that Turner did send Ellen his copy of Muscologica Hibernica, and it was still in Ellen’s possession when she died in 1815. Turner wrote to Ellen’s sister in law, Matilda Hutchins, asking if she could ensure that it was returned to him. She replied saying that she knew the book to which he referred, had seen it recently and would send it to him.
‘I have specimens and 6 drawings of beautiful minute Conferva that I did before my illness to send with them. I am very glad you liked the drawings I hope to improve with practice. I felt so strongly the necessity of making use of the parcel that I determined to apply myself to drawing as much as my health would allow and have just procured a large store of drawing materials. I shall very willingly do any thing you wish for and have intended to send you sketches of all the new Conferva I met with. They recover so impressively. I began mosses too but have not been able to do much.’ Ellen to Dawson Turner 21st January 1809
‘My father said with deep feeling once when we were walking to our destination in Soho Square no. 24 “This is where I often went for paints and materials for your Aunt Ellen.” Newmans, where he was getting some for me.’
A link to the Directory entry for Newmans is here.
When a pencil was not a pencil
‘My dear Sir, I have just washed the pencil that finished drawing Fucus Kaliformis, before my heart and fingers cool I shall send it with the few other drawings this parcel contains for you. I hope most warmly that the little I now send may give you pleasure. Ought not Fucus Wigghii to reside with the Rivularia? What an exquisite little beauty it is!’ EH to DT 9th October 1809
pencil (noun)
1. A small brush of hair which painters dip in their colours.
2. A black lead pen, with which cut to a point they write without ink.
3. Any instrument of writing without ink.
To pencil (verb) (from the noun)
to paint.
For a description of some of the processes and the differences between watercolour painting now and in the early 1800s, see the piece by Shevaun Doherty here.