Lot 185: Gertrude Jekyll

Gertrude Jekyll
album of fifty-nine studies of flowers, gardens and rural views, circa 1885
including studies of the Surrey and English countryside, including the medieval bridge over the Whey near Unstead, a study of horse chestnuts in Busbridge, the old half-timbered manor house at Unstead Farm, entrance to Malt House Farm, and a study of the garden doorway leading to the kitchen garden in Jekyll's own home, Munstead House, and a group of studies of floral arrangements, Platinum Prints, one unmounted and inscribed 'largest gourds 90 to 100 lbs. weight' in pencil on the reverse, the majority 203 by 153mm or the reverse, half morocco, gilt-titled 'Photographs./G.J.' on the spine, 4to
Gertrude Jekyll (1843-1932) is arguably one of the most influential garden designers of the early 20th Century, as well as being an accomplished artist, craftswoman, photographer, writer and business-woman. She collaborated with many architects on numerous commissions, but it is for her work in partnership with Sir Edwin Lutyens for which she is most celebrated. Together they worked on more than seventy commissions, including Munstead Wood, Surrey, Jekyll's own house and garden where she lived from October 1897 and where she designed the garden as a series of 'pictures'.
Jekyll's first photographs were taken in 1885 and she used the medium not only to illustrate her books and articles but also as an aide-memoire.
Her nephew, Francis Jekyll, suggests that his aunt was characteristically proficient with the camera, 'as usual the whole process was mastered from start to finish; sinks and dark rooms were fitted up at home, and the long series of tree and flower studies, farm buildings and old Surrey types which were to figure in her books began to issue...'.
The present album dates from 1885, and contains studies that Jekyll used to illustrate her writing including Wood and Garden (1899), her first published book (plate 3 'Holly Stems in an Old Hedgerow'), and Old West Surrey (1904) (plate 19 The old half timbered manor house at Unstead Farm) and a study of Horse Chestnut trees in Busbridge for which she received a credit when it was published in The Garden in April 1887.
Provenance:
Christie's South Kensington, London, March 10th 1977, lot 386.
Literature:
Judith B. Tankard and Michael R. Van Valkenburgh, Gertrude Jekyll A Vision of Garden and Wood, New York, 1989, four photographs contained within the present album illustrated p. 100, pl 55, p. 103, pl. 58, p. 109, pl. 64 and p. 117, pl. 72; Michael Tooley and Primrose Arnander, Gertrude Jekyll Essays on the Life of a Working Amateur, Durham, 1995, pp. 154-162 for an essay on Jekyll as a photographer by Heather Angel; Judith B. Tankard & Martin A. Wood, Gertrude Jekyll at Munstead Wood, Writing, Horticulture, Photography, Homebuilding, Stroud, Gloucestershire, 1996, six photographs contained within the present album illustrated pp. 39, 48, 53-54, and 63-64.