The Tradescants' Orchard ― The Mystery of a Seventeenth-century Painted Fruit Book

In the early seventeenth century, England’s leisured classes took an eager interest in fruits from the Mediterranean and beyond, introducing species from abroad into the kitchen gardens and orchards of grand homes. A charming collection of sixty-six early watercolors showing fecund trees with fruits hanging heavily from their branches, The Tradescants’ Orchard is a testament to these broadening horticultural horizons.

The Tradescants’ Orchard reproduces for the first time the entire manuscript, traditionally associated with the renowned father-and-son nurserymen the John Tradescants. The paintings pose many questions: Who painted them and why? What is the significance of the wildlife—birds, butterflies, frogs, and snails—that appear throughout? Why is there only one depiction of an apple tree despite its popularity? Were there others that have since gone missing?

A visual feast that will appeal to botany and gardening enthusiasts, the book also includes an introduction that maps out the mystery of how and why these enigmatic watercolors were made.

Barrie Juniper is reader emeritus in plant sciences at the University of Oxford; emeritus fellow of St Catherine’s College, University of Oxford; and the author of The Story of the Apple. Hanneke Grootenboer is a university lecturer in the history of art and a fellow and tutor at St Peter’s College, University of Oxford. She is the author, most recently, of Treasuring the Gaze: Intimate Vision in Late Eighteenth-Century Eye Miniatures, published by the University of Chicago Press.