British Artists in Chile

Abstract

Marianne North (1830–1890) visited Chile in 1884, despite suffering from ill health, in what turned out to be her last great journey overseas. She was keen to paint the monkey-puzzle tree in its natural environment and the blue paya flowers in the Chilean Andes. The scene of suddenly coming across the flowers is captured in a painting that now hangs in the Marianne North Gallery at the Royal Botanic Gardens as part of the collection of 832 of her paintings, which represent over nine hundred plant species, including one genus and four species named in her honor.

And behold, just over my head, a great group of the noble flowers, standing out like ghosts at first, then gradually coming out with their full beauty of colour and form in every stage of growth; while beyond them glittered a snow-peak far away.

—Marianne North