Leaves and Flowers from Nature No. 8, Day & Son; Owen Jones; Christopher Dresser

This sheet of botanical illustrations comes from The Grammar of Ornament, a design sourcebook from 1856 containing text by the influential architect and designer Owen Jones alongside 100 color lithographs depicting various patterns. Jones devoted the final chapter of his book, “Leaves and Flowers from Nature,” to the historically and geographically common foundation shared by the best examples of ornament and design: natural forms, particularly those found in the botanical world. Jones envisioned the book as a valuable resource for students of design.

This plate is the only image in The Grammar of Ornament designed by Christopher Dresser, a botanist, artist, and student of Jones’s at London’s School of Design, where Dresser would eventually teach. Dresser and Jones were important figures in a campaign led by scientists and artists to reform the British design industry in light of the School of Design’s policy of “wedding science with art.” The science in question was heavily influenced by Charles Darwin’s then hotly contested theory of evolution.