Lucia Tongiorgi Tomasi groups the works into chapters on such topics as florilegia, women artists, tulipomania, Dutch and Flemish painting, and exotic flowers from distant lands, providing an introduction to each chapter that gives the contextual background necessary for a real understanding and appreciation of floral illustration past and present. The sheer beauty as well as extraordinary skills encountered, for example, in manuscript florilegia by Jacob Marrel and Maria Sibylla Merian, in hand colored books by Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues and G. B. Ferrari, and in flower studies painted by John Constable, Margaret Mee, and others, are testament to the high status accorded floral illustration over the centuries.

This handsome, richly illustrated volume will attract all those with an interest in rare books and the history of art as well as horticulturalists, botanists, and garden historians.