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Three pieces with decorations based on Flora Danica copper engravings: large dish with wood horsetail (Equisetum sylvaticus), based on plate 1182, volume 20, published 1797 (bottom); dessert plate with lichen (Lichen vespertilio Lightf.), based on plate 1125, volume 19, published 1794 (top); and fruit salad plate with mushroom (Agaricus micaceus Sibth.), based on plate 1193, volume 20, published 1797 (right). Porcelain and botany

Flora Danica. 1790–1802 Shortly after the launch of the blue designs, Design: Anonymous multicolour flowers appeared on Danish porcelain in Manufacture: Royal Porcelain Factory the form of vines, bouquets and scattered flowers from ornamental plants. The flowers were lifelike and detailed but appeared in designs where purely decorative concerns took precedence while realism was a minor concern. Thus, flowers were combined For centuries, floral motifs have been used to without regard for their actual size or for whether decorate both East Asian and European porcelain. they naturally grew in the same area or bloomed at Flowers also played a key role when Denmark the same time. The Flora Danica pattern represented established a domestic production of hard-paste a very different approach to aesthetics and meaning. porcelain, patterned on German methods, with the founding of the Royal Chartered Porcelain The scientific interest in flowers Manufactory (later renamed Royal Porcelain Factory) The background and inspiration for the Flora Danica in 1775. pattern came from scientific literature and botany. In the factory’s earliest designs, the flowers The first scientific book on wild Danish flora, Simon appeared in blue and otherwise naturalist Paulli’s illustrated botany, was published in 1648 at reproductions of bouquets and individual flowers, as the initiative of King Christian IV. In 1752, the German in Blue Flower or the highly stylized buds, branches doctor and botanist Georg Christian Oeder came to and leaves of the blue fluted pattern. Both patterns Copenhagen as Denmark’s first royal professor of have proven their staying power and become design botany. One of his tasks was to collect specimens for classics. and publish a comprehensive ‘Flora Danica’ covering

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