Catalogue des Plantes de S.A.S. Madame La Duchesse Pie de Bavière née Princesse Amélie d’Arenberg, 1812-[ca. 1820]

MLMSS 10408/Box 1X

fonds

1812-[ca. 1820]

9604429

0.05 metres of textual materials (1 outsize box) - 12.5 x 10.2 cm; 17.2 x 10.9 cm - 2 bound manuscripts

Princess Amélie Louise d'Arenberg (1789-1823) was a member of the House of Arenberg and the grandmother of Empress Elisabeth of Austria. Princess Amélie married Duke Pius August of Bavaria in 1807, so became known as Duchess of Bavaria. The couple lived at Bamberg, where she established the garden documented in these catalogues. The couple had a strong interest in science – the Duchess was one of a small number of women to exhibit the quarterly salons at the botanical gardens in Ghent, Belgium, along with Sir Joseph Banks.

The Bamberg Garden was established shortly after the first Australian plants made their way to Europe - the first separate work on Australian plants, James Edward Smith’s 'A Specimen of the Botany of New Holland', was published in 1793. In the following decade exotic plants became increasingly fashionable amongst the aristocratic set, notably the Empress Josephine at Malmaison and Sir Abraham and Lady Amelia Hume at Wormleybury, Hertfordshire. A network of botanists in Europe focused on plants from the New World and shared information and specimens amongst each other.

Reference:
Library acquisition file

Matthew Fishburn purchased the two volumes from the specialist bookseller Jonathan A. Hill, who bought them in a small general sale by a Munich auction house in 2014. Hill stated in his catalogue that they came from 'the library of the Kings of Bavaria'.

These two manuscript volumes catalogue the exotic plants being grown at the Bamberg garden of Amélie Louise, Duchess of Bavaria between 1812 and 1820.

Volume 1:
A smaller, annual catalogue with 78 leaves (of which 48 are blank, some uncut), bound in contemporary green half-sheep and green boards, spine lettered ‘Catalog des Plantes’.
The catalogue is in three sections - for the years 1812, 1813, and 1814 - and records the plants acquired in those years, including many exotic species. Only a handful of Australian plants were acquired in this period, the last years of the Napoleonic war.

Volume 2:
A larger, octavo volume in glazed red paper board of which only about one third of the leaves have been used. Paper label on spine reads 'Catalog’.
A manuscript alphabetical index of the garden, undated but evidently dated later than the other volume because it tracks and then extends the annual lists, [ca. 1820, not later than 1823 when the Duchess died].

The catalogues list over 400 plants and contain at least 18 Australian species, including Leptospermum, Acacia, seven varieties of Banksia and three Melaleuca. As well as Australian plants, the catalogues include species from South Africa, India, East Asia and the Americas. The unknown scribe has employed curious spellings for many plants (Pancratium is spelled ‘Bankratium’, and Mahonia is spelled ‘Mahernia’), indicating that standard reference books were not consulted.

Latin, French

Out of copyright:
Please acknowledge:: Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales

Title taken from title page of Volume 1.

Volume 1 has '5419' pasted on spine.