This piece titled ' Tubeflower Bowing Lady' is an exquisite piece of botanical illustration. The seeds of the plants depicted in the illustration can be used for treating parasitic worm infections . This painting is part of local amateur botanist Richard Cresswell's collection. This is one of the 86 paintings owned by Richard , and dates back approximately to the early 1800s . Majority if the plants illustrated in the collection came in handy while talking about Ayurvedic treatments. Ayurveda is probably the world's oldest medicine system , dating back to approximately 3000 years ago . During the mid 18th to the late 19th centuries, the British East India Company had occupied much of India .
Keen to explore the various invaluable plants they saw in India, the British started keping botanical records of the flora of India. These illustrations were supervised by higher British authorities.The names of the artist's were officially recorded . Thus, it can be safe to say that the above illustration is more of a documentation that a piece of painting solely for the sake of art . Art is both personal and objective at the same point of time. Such botanical illustrations flourished under the patronage of the British. The British Company heavily relied on their Indian officials for treating certain diseases .
With this beautiful depiction of a tubeflower, Bhawani Das demonstrates the skill and understanding needed to document and illustrate for scientific and artistic pleasure. This level of detail, where each individual leaf is rendered and each flower is examined separately, highlights the scrutiny and the depth we require for these fields.
