“ONE OF THE LAST OF THE GREAT ‘WOMEN OF FLOWERS”: FOORD’S POCHOIR-COLORED FLOWER STUDIES FOR ARTISTS, 1906, HER PRESENTATION COPY TO THE PUBLISHER, INSCRIBED AND WITH A SIGNED LETTER OF APPRECIATION LAID IN

FOORD, Jeannie. Decorative Plant & Flower Studies for the Use of Artists, Designers, Students & Others, Containing 40 Colored Plates Printed in Facsimile of the Original Drawings. Accompanied by a Description and Sketch of Each Plant and 450 Studies of Growth & Detail. London: B.T. Batsford, 1906. Folio (11-1/2 by 15 inches), original pale blue-green cloth pictorially stamped in green and gilt rebcaked with original spine laid down, illustrated endpapers, top edge gilt.

First edition of Foord’s second series of 40 wonderful Art Nouveau drawings of shrubs, trees, wild flowers and garden plants, rendered in pochoir “simply and broadly in outline and flat tints,” designed to provide artists with sufficient detail to “build up their own designs.” This is the very copy Foord presented to her publisher Harry Batsford of B.T. Batsford Ltd., inscribed on the half title, “With many thanks for very much help in the making of this book, from Jeanie Foord, 13.11.06.” An autograph letter of presentation and further appreciation is laid in.

In response to the success of her 1901 series of exquisite schematic studies of flowers, Glasgow artist Jeannie Foord produced this second series, in which “she has made careful choice of the most beautiful features of the plant and rendered it simply and broadly in outline and flat tints… They are drawn with care and exactness, and with a firm line.” Her illustrations were “much praised” for their delicate grace and beauty, structural accuracy, naturalistic form, and skillful draftsmanship. The beautifully muted colors were printed en pochoir by the Paris firm of E. Greningaire. Foord’s intention was to provide a sourcebook for art students and craftsmen who “might not be able to take their inspiration directly from nature.” Artisans in the Arts & Crafts movement tranformed her Art Nouveau images into designs for stained glass, fabric, woodwork and cement sculpture. “Never before has the essential character of different plants received, from the point of view of their adaptability for decorative purposes, the careful study and brilliant representation which they receive at Miss Foord’s hands in this exquisitely printed and colored book… Miss Foord is one of the last of the great ‘Women of Flowers” (Daily Telegraph). Nissen 640. The recipient of this copy, Harry Batsford, in addition to leading the B.T. Batsford publishing house, authored several books on art and architecture, including The Cathedrals of England (1935), The Greater English Church of the Middle Ages (1940), and The Face of Scotland (1942).

Interior near-fine with only occasional instances of light foxing, spine lightly sunned, corners lightly worn.