Dahlia, 29th of September 2014.
Watercolor, 18 cm x 24 cm
Dahlias.
They come in many variants. With one row of petals and many rows of petals. In year 1934 Marshal Howe of the New York
Botanical Garden, compiled a list of Dahlia cultivars containing more than 14,000
names [1]. They first came to Spanish gardens from Mexico, in year 1791 (1789 ? [2]). Antonio Jose Cavanilles gave
them their name, in commemoration of Andreas Dahl, a Swedish botanist [1,2].
They were almost certainly grown by Aztecs, perhaps in royal gardens in Itzapalapa or Huaxtepecu.
Some think that their stems were used for medicinal purposes [1,2], perhaps for urinary problems.
Goethe raised dahlias [2], and Monet, who adored his garden and flowers painted them. Monet's painting below shows his
garden in Argenteuil where he lived in 1871-1878. Of course, he liked water lilies much more.
A dahlia of mine, on the image that opened the post, was painted on 28th of August 2014. Besides me and Monet :), it was painted, of
course, by many. As an example of botanical illustration, below I show the painting of >>
Pierre-Joseph Redouté (1759 - 1840), a favorite of Joséphine de Beauharnais, first wife of Napoleon Bonaparte, known in his time
also as "The Raphael of flowers".
Redouté was famoous by his folio books, collections of excellent painting of flowers, and the one below, denoted as Dalhia double,
was published in one such collection called "Choix des plus belles fleurs et de
quelques branches des plus beaux fruits" [3] (a scan of excellent quality can be downloaded at
>> archive.org, but beware of its size - almost 1 GB).
Single or simple dahlias have flowers with a single row of petals, typically 8 or 9 per flower. I painted the orange one below
on 27th of August 2014.
Dahlia buds look fat, shiny and greasy, the light strongly reflects off the wax that coats them.
Below I bring Redouté's painting of single dahlia denoted as Dalhia simplex.
LITERATURE:
[1] Paul D. Sorensen, The Dahlia: An Early History, Arnoldia 30(4), 121 - 131 (1970).
[2] Martin Král, Of Dahlia Myths and Aztec Mythology: The Dahlia in History
[3] P.J. Redouté, Choix des plus belles fleurs et de quelques branches des plus beaux fruits,
>> archive.org, visited on 27th of September 2014. godine.
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Last updated on 29th of September 2014.