User:Leahduffy7/sandbox

Career

Gertrude Hartland was a talented botanic artist and illustrator active between the late 1880s into the 1890s. She is most famous for her daffodil paintings, which were later reproduced through illustrations. She sketched and painted flowers from her Uncle’s nursery, who is thought to be the main inspiration for her work.

Hartland is most famous for her drawing and painting of flowers, in particular daffodils, first used for her uncle’s flower nursery, which he later published as illustrations in his catalogue. She worked closely with her uncle, who both shared a love for flowers.

Her uncle, William Baylor Hartland was a plant man who specialised in daffodils, this is where Hartland got her inspiration. In the late 1880s, he produced several catalogues using Gertrude’s paintings as illustrations. In 1897, he published an article about Christmas roses in the Gardener’s Chronicle, when he used Hartland’s work, an original watercolour piece. There was a common issue with this article which only cost a few pence, but there was also a limited number of hand-coloured copies which cost one guinea a piece. Hartland was one of the leading pioneers in the promotion of daffodils as a popular flower.

Two of Hartland’s paintings are still available for viewing in the Royal Horticultural Society library in Rathfarnham, Dublin. What is interesting about her work is that they remain unsigned. Despite Hartland’s unique talent for art, she seemed to have little interest or ambition to pursue art properly and took it as more of a hobby in her spare time than a career. Her work is still around today She has never exhibited at the Royal Hibernian Academy or the Irish Watercolor Society. Although Hartland’s work is over a hundred years old, her legacy lives on today in her paintings.

References

Gertrude Hartland. Wikiwand. (n.d.). Retrieved November 23, 2022, from https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Gertrude_Hartland Society, A. D. (n.d.). Detail Page. DaffSeek. Retrieved November 23, 2022, from https://daffseek.org/detail-page/?cultivar=Countess+of+Annesley

Visual Arts, Cork. (n.d.). Biographies of 19th-century Irish artists (H-K) lives and paintings of nineteenth-century painters from Ireland. Biographies of 19th Century Irish Artists (H-K). Retrieved November 23, 2022, from http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/biographies-of-irish-artists/hamilton-kay.htm

Snoddy, T. (2002) dictionary of Irish artists: 20th century (2nd Edition)