Framed Floral Indigo Prints by Dale Goffigon

Dimensions: 11" W x 1"D x14" H

Sold individually. Each print depicts a different herbal illustration. Call or email for additional details and availability.

Dale Goffigon captures the delicate beauty of Elizabeth Blackwell’s historic Herbal prints through cyanotype and archival pigment photography.

Elizabeth Blackwell's herbal was one of the earliest flower books to be published in parts. They were issued from 1737 to 1739. Each volume consisted of four plates with a numbered leaf of engraved description containing the place of growth, time of flowering, the common medicinal uses, and name in seven languages. The complete work was re-issued in two folio volumes with a signed recommendation by nine well-known men including botanists, physicians, and surgeons.

Blackwell originally took up botanical illustration in order to pay off her husband's debts. She was encouraged by Sir Hans Sloane, Dr. Mean, and Isaac Rand, the curator of Botanical gardens at Chelsea. After finishing the drawings, Mrs. Blackwell engraved the coppers and colored the prints herself. She then took them to her husband in prison who supplied the scientific nomenclature in various languages as well as the small descriptions, which were abridged versions of those in Philip Miller's Botanicum Officinale.

She bought her husband's release from jail and temporarily re-established his affairs so that he was able to take up medicine and agriculture. In 1742, however, he immigrated to Sweden, became involved in a plot against King Frederick I, for which he was accused of treason and was condemned without trial and beheaded in 1747.

These drawings at one time belonged to John Stuart, Third Earl of Bute, who probably bought them directly from Elizabeth Blackwell since he was an active collector of botanical drawings and she was in need of money.

Goffigon’s cyanotypes highlight form and texture with striking blue tones, while her pigment prints provide precise, archival-quality reproductions of the originals.

About the Artist
Born in 1952 on Virginia’s Eastern Shore, Dale Goffigon studied photography at the International Center of Photography (NY), the Maine Photographic Workshop, and the Center for Alternative Processes. Her work, focusing on gardens, historic architecture, and interiors, has appeared in Architectural Digest, Connecticut Cottages and Gardens, Town and Country, and more.