A walk through the gardens that inspired The Paper Garden enters the world of Elizabeth Delany, the pioneering botanical artist who is the subject of Molly…
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Walking the gardens behind The Paper Garden
The science of colour fading in Mrs Delany’s collages
Mary Delany’s paper mosaiks are remarkable for their precision, delicacy and sustained visual energy. Created late in her life, these botanical compositions…
Friendship, botany and the hidden work of women patrons
Molly Peacock’s The Paper Garden brings together two women whose friendship crossed rank, age and expertise. Margaret Cavendish Harley, Duchess of Portland,…
Papermaking Techniques Behind Mrs. Delany’s Art
The eighteenth-century papermaking techniques that made Mrs. Delany’s art possible began with fibre, water, a wire mould and patient drying. The coloured…
Molly Peacock’s Search for Mrs Delany’s Lost Letters
Mrs Delany—Mary Delany, née Granville—was born in England in 1700 and became a pioneering botanical collagist. She cut, coloured and layered paper into…
Why Mrs Delany Chose Paper Instead of Paint
At 72, Mary Delany began a new artistic life with coloured paper, scissors and paste. Her finished works resemble botanical paintings, yet their construction…
The botanical accuracy of Mrs. Delany’s paper flowers under a microscope
Mary Delany’s cut-paper mosaics reward a close look. Their coloured petals, fine veins and convincingly placed stamens can make a collage seem as exact as a…
How Mrs. Delany’s collages anticipated modern scrapbooking
Delany used materials now familiar from handmade albums, including coloured paper, printed fragments, cut edges and layers. Her botanical collages resemble…
Mrs Delany’s collages and the plants that nearly vanished
Mary Delany began her paper garden in 1773, at the age of seventy-two. She cut, coloured and pasted printed paper into botanical forms, mounting the finished…
The music inside Molly Peacock’s prose
The Sound of The Paper Garden: Molly Peacock’s Prose Rhythm is easiest to understand as a study of breath. In The Paper Garden, the eighteenth-century artist…