Banks' Florilegium is a collection of copperplate engraving

Engraving

Engraving is the practice of incising a design on to a hard, usually flat surface, by cutting grooves into it. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an intaglio printing plate, of copper or another metal, for printing...

s of plants collected by Sir Joseph Banks

Joseph Banks

Sir Joseph Banks, 1st Baronet, GCB, PRS was an English naturalist, botanist and patron of the natural sciences. He took part in Captain James Cook's first great voyage . Banks is credited with the introduction to the Western world of eucalyptus, acacia, mimosa and the genus named after him,...

 and Daniel Solander

Daniel Solander

Daniel Carlsson Solander or Daniel Charles Solander was a Swedish naturalist and an apostle of Carl Linnaeus. Solander was the first university educated scientist to set foot on Australian soil.-Biography:...

 while they accompanied Captain James Cook

James Cook

Captain James Cook, FRS, RN was a British explorer, navigator and cartographer who ultimately rose to the rank of captain in the Royal Navy...

 on his voyage around the world between 1768 and 1771. They collected plants in Madeira

Madeira

Madeira is a Portuguese archipelago that lies between and , just under 400 km north of Tenerife, Canary Islands, in the north Atlantic Ocean and an outermost region of the European Union...

, Brazil

Brazil

Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

, Tierra del Fuego

Tierra del Fuego

Tierra del Fuego is an archipelago off the southernmost tip of the South American mainland, across the Strait of Magellan. The archipelago consists of a main island Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego divided between Chile and Argentina with an area of , and a group of smaller islands including Cape...

, the Society Islands

Society Islands

The Society Islands are a group of islands in the South Pacific Ocean. They are politically part of French Polynesia. The archipelago is generally believed to have been named by Captain James Cook in honor of the Royal Society, the sponsor of the first British scientific survey of the islands;...

, New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

 and Java

Java

Java is an island of Indonesia. With a population of 135 million , it is the world's most populous island, and one of the most densely populated regions in the world. It is home to 60% of Indonesia's population. The Indonesian capital city, Jakarta, is in west Java...

.

Banks' and Solander's specimens were studied aboard the HM Bark Endeavour

HM Bark Endeavour

HMS Endeavour, also known as HM Bark Endeavour, was a British Royal Navy research vessel commanded by Lieutenant James Cook on his first voyage of discovery, to Australia and New Zealand from 1769 to 1771....

 by Sydney Parkinson

Sydney Parkinson

Sydney Parkinson was a Scottish Quaker, botanical illustrator and natural history artist.Parkinson was employed by Joseph Banks to travel with him on James Cook's first voyage to the Pacific in 1768. Parkinson made nearly a thousand drawings of plants and animals collected by Banks and Daniel...

. He drew each specimen and made notes on their colour, and for some species he completed watercolour illustrations. When they returned to London, Banks hired 5 artists to create watercolours of all of Parkinson's drawings. Between 1771 and 1784 Banks hired 18 engravers to create the copperplate line engraving

Line engraving

Line engraving is a term for engraved images printed on paper to be used as prints or illustrations. The term is now much less used and when is, it is mainly in connection with 18th or 19th century commercial illustrations for magazines and books, or reproductions of paintings.Steel engraving is...

s from the 743 completed watercolours at a considerable cost. The Florilegium was not printed in Banks' lifetime and he bequeathed the plates to the British Museum

British Museum

The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...

.

Some of the plates were eventually printed. Between 1900 and 1905, James Britten

James Britten

James Britten was an English botanist.-Biography:Born in Chelsea, London, he moved to High Wycombe in 1865 to begin a medical career. However he became increasingly interested in botany, and began writing papers on the subject...

 and the British Museum issued prints of 315 of the plant engravings in black ink, under the title Illustrations of Australian Plants. Others were included in black and white in the 1973 book Captain Cook's Florilegium. The first complete full-colour edition of the Florilegium was published between 1980 and 1990 in 34 parts by Alecto Historical Editions and the British Museum (Natural History). Only 100 sets were made available for sale, some on a subscription basis. The plates were printed using a 17th century technique known as à la poupée where each colour was applied directly to the plate, colour accuracy was checked against Parkinson's notes and through consultation with the Museum's Botanical Editor, Chris Humphries

Chris Humphries

Chris Humphries was a British botanist known for his work on systematic botany and biogeography.In 1980 he was awarded the Bicentenary Medal of the Linnean Society. In 2001 the Linnean Society of London awarded him the Linnean Medal for his contributions to the botany....

. Each plate took from one week to two months to proof. Chris Humphries worked closely with his colleague, the Botany Librarian Judith Diment, as well as the printers led by Edward Egerton-Williams, the typesetters led by Ian Mortimer and colleagues at Alecto Historical Editions including Nigel Frith, Laurence Hoffman and Elaine Shaughnessy. Parts 1 to 15 consist of 337 plates relating to the Australian flora

Flora of Australia

The flora of Australia comprises a vast assemblage of plant species estimated to over 20,000 vascular and 14,000 non-vascular plants, 250,000 species of fungi and over 3,000 lichens...

, parts 16 to 34 include Brazil, Madeira, New Zealand, Java, Society Islands and Tierra del Fuego. Banks’ Florilegium is the world’s largest 20th century fine art printing project and has been exhibited all over the world.

A documentary recounting the journey and the publication of the Florilegium, Banks' Florilegium: The Flowering of the Pacific, was released in 1984. It was narrated by Australian Robert Hughes

Robert Hughes (critic)

Robert Studley Forrest Hughes, AO is an Australian-born art critic, writer and television documentary maker who has resided in New York since 1970.-Early life:...

. A book on the subject, The flowering of the Pacific: Being an account of Joseph Banks' travels in the South Seas and the story of his Florilegium, by Brian Adams was published by the British Museum in 1986.