'Daucus sylvestris' Jacob van Huysum

Botanical study of daucus sylvestris, a specimen of daucus carota, common name wild carrot. This plant is native to Europe and Southwestern Asia. Painting shows leafy green plant, with red and white clustered flowers open and in bud.

Painting 21 from MS/109, a collection of botanical paintings by Jacob van Huysum and William Sartorius.

Inscribed in ink 'Daucus sylvestris humilior folio latiore Rand. Found at Dover.' Not Signed.

According to Philip Miller's The Gardeners Dictionary (1748), this particular carrot plant was 'found by Mr [Isaac] Rand, near Dover, and is specially different from the common Sort, as hath been proved by sowing them together in a Garden'. Isaac Rand FRS (1674 - 1743) was the Director of the Chelsea Physic Garden, and catalogued the yearly list of plants sent from Chelsea to the Royal Society, many of which were painted by van Huysum.

Jacob van Huysum (1682-1745), Dutch botanical painter, was not a Fellow of the Royal Society. He produced most of the 50 illustrations for the Historia Plantarum Rariorum (London: 1728-38) written by John Martyn FRS, and all the drawings for Philip Miller’s Catalogus Plantarum (1730), an index of trees, shrubs, plants and flowers.