Sarah Drake

Sarah Anne Drake was born in Skeyton, England on 24 July 1803, the same area of Norfolk as the London University botanist John Lindley and went to school with Lindley's sister Anne. John Lindley had a particular interest in the illustration of orchids and would eventually invite Sarah Drake to become an illustrator with him and study a variety of plants. As a young woman, she went to Paris, where she probably studied painting as was expected of young women of the day. In 1830 "Ducky" (as she became known) moved into the Lindley home at Acton Green in London. She appears to have had a number of roles in the Lindley home, including that of governess, but eventually took up botanical art, gradually taking over from Lindley the illustration of his botanical publications. She created illustrations for his Sertum Orchidaceae, for example, as well as over 1000 illustrations for the horticultural magazine Edwards's Botanical Register, which Lindley edited from 1829 to 1847. More than 300 of these drawings were of orchids and Lindley named the Western Australian orchid genus Drakaea in her honour.{{cite book | first = Helen | last = Hewson | year = 1999 | title = Australia: 300 years of botanical illustration | publisher = CSIRO Publishing | location = Collingwood, Victoria | isbn = 0-643-06366-8}}Kramer, Jack. Women of Flowers: A Tribute to Victorian Women Illustrators. Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 1996.{{cite web|title=Women's work - Sarah Drake 1803-1857|url=http://womenswork.lindahall.org/drake1.shtml|publisher=Linda Hall Library of Science, Engineering and Technology|accessdate=3 November 2017}}{{cite journal|last1=Hopper|first1=Stephen D.|last2=Brown|first2=Andrew P.|title=A revision of Australia' s hammer orchids (Drakaea: Orchidaceae), with some field data on species-specific sexually deceived wasp pollinators|journal=Australian Systematic Botany|date=2007|volume=20|issue=3|pages=262–264|doi=10.1071/SB06033|bibcode=2007AuSyB..20..252H }} She also contributed illustrations to the Transactions of the Horticultural Society of London.{{cite web |title=HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY OF LONDON Transactions of the Horticultural Society of London ... [Bound with:] Transactions ... Second Series |url=https://www.donaldheald.com/pages/books/29434/horticultural-society-of-london/transactions-of-the-horticultural-society-of-london-bound-with-transactions-second-series |website=Donald A Heald - rare books, prints and maps |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180417105330/https://www.donaldheald.com/pages/books/29434/horticultural-society-of-london/transactions-of-the-horticultural-society-of-london-bound-with-transactions-second-series |accessdate=15 September 2020|archive-date=2018-04-17 }}

Drake is perhaps best known for her collaboration with Augusta Innes Withers on the drawings for the monumental Orchidaceae of Mexico and Guatemala by James Bateman. This was elephant folio size (pages about 58 cm (23 inches) long) and issued in parts between 1837 and 1843. She did the drawings for 16 of the 40 drawings while Withers did the others (apart from one by Jane Edwards). The illustrations were enlarged by Maxim Gauci.{{Cite web |title=Orchido-Mania {{!}} Royal Society |url=https://royalsociety.org/blog/2024/03/orchido-mania/ |access-date=2024-03-04 |website=royalsociety.org |language=en}} However, Drake also contributed to Lindley's book, [https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/100912#page/13/mode/1up Ladies' Botany] (1834–1837), Nathaniel Wallich's Plantae Asiaticae Rariores, John Forbes Royle's Illustrations of the botany and other branches of the natural history of the Himalayan Mountains and to The Botany of HMS Sulphur (1836–1842). Most of her imagery laid the groundwork for other drawings to blossom and take inspiration from. Drake’s inherent talent regarding composition and arrangement of her plant specimens helps separate her from others who engaged in botanical illustration. She did not travel abroad and probably went no further than Kew Gardens, the Lindley home or to Loddiges nursery, which put on a display of orchids especially for her.Schmidt, Alesandra M., and Trudy B. Jacoby. [http://digitalrepository.trincoll.edu/exhibitions/3 "Herbs to Orchids: Botanical Illustration in the Nineteenth Century"]. Watkinson Exhibition Catalogs, Paper 3, 1996.{{cite web|last1=Buckley|first1=Julia|title=Miss Drake - a skilled illustrator of orchids|url=https://www.kew.org/read-and-watch/miss-drake-illustrator-orchids|publisher=Royal Botanic Gardens Kew|accessdate=19 June 2024}}{{cite book|editor-last1=Pomeroy|editor-first1=Jordana |editor-link1=Jordana Pomeroy|title=Intrepid women: Victorian artists travel|date=2005|publisher=Ashgate|location=Aldershot|isbn=9780754650720|pages=71–72}}{{cite web|title=Sarah Anne Drake|url=http://www.longham.org.uk/drake.asp|publisher=The Longham Parish Website|accessdate=3 November 2017|archive-date=2 September 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180902091202/http://longham.org.uk/drake.asp|url-status=dead}}

Drake's career ended when the Botanical Register went out of business in 1847. Sarah would end up contributing more than one thousand paintings and drawings in her short career. She returned to Norfolk to care for elderly relatives and moved in with her uncle, Daniel Drake. In 1852 she married John Sutton Hastings, a wealthy farmer. She died on 9 July 1857, putatively from diabetes, but it has been speculated that she may have suffered from cumulative poisoning from her painting materials. In 2000 a memorial plaque commemorating her work was unveiled at the parish church where she is buried.

{{Gallery

|title=Illustrations from Sertum Orchidaceum

|width=160

|height=170

||Stanhopea devoniensis (now Stanhopea hernandezii)

||Cymbidium giganteum (now Eulophia speciosa)

|File:Mobot31753000316197 0105.jpg|Cymbidium elegans

}}

{{Gallery

|title=Illustrations from The Botany of the Voyage of H.M.S. Sulphur

|width=160

|height=170

|File:Mobot31753000321692 0019.jpg|Iodidium fruticulosum (now Hybanthus fruticulosus)

|File:Mobot31753000321692 0018.jpg|Krameria parvifolia (now Krameria erecta)

|File:Mobot31753000321692 0026.jpg|Schinus discolor (now Pachycormus discolor)

|File:Mobot31753000321692 0022.jpg|Galphimia angustifolia

}}

{{Gallery

|title=Illustrations from The Orchidology of Mexico and Guatemala

|width=160

|height=170

|File:Myrmecophila tibicinis (as Schomburgkia tibicinis)-Bateman Orch. Mex. Guat. pl. 30 (1843).jpg|Schomburgkia tibicinis (now Myrmecophila tibicinis)

|File:The Orchidaceae of Mexico and Guatemala (Tab. XXXVII) BHL769237.jpg|Sobralia macrantha

}}

{{Gallery

|title = Other images by Sarah Drake

|width=160

|height=170

|File:Mimulus cardinalis RHS.jpeg|Scarlet monkeyflower (now Erythranthe cardinalis)

|File:Mucuna pruriens RHS.jpeg|Velvet bean (Mucuna pruriens)

|File:Laburnocytisus Adami RHS.jpeg|Adam's laburnum (+Laburnocytisus adamii)

|File:Edwards's Botanical Register Volume 20 Plate 1728 - Banksia speciosa.jpg|Banksia speciosa - Plate 1728 of Edwards's Botanical Register, Volume 20, signed "Miss Drake"

|File:Stanhopea quadricornis by Sarah Ann Drake. Edwards's Botanical Register vol. 24, t. 5 (1838) (S.A. Drake).tiff|Stanhopea quadricornis

|File:Disocactus speciosus as Cereus speciosissimus, by Sarah Ann Drake. Edwards's Botanical Register vol. 28- t. 49 (1842).tiff|Disocactus speciosus as Cereus speciosissimus

}}

• [https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/269762 Sertum Orchidaceum]
• [https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/15471#page/3/mode/1up Bateman, J. The Orchidology of Mexico and Guatemala (1837–1843)]
• [https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/780140 The Botany of H.M.S. Sulphur (1836 - 1842)]
• Wallich, N. Plantae Asiaticae Rariores (1830 - 1832) ([https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/449433 Volume 1], [https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/451985 Volume 2], [https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/452176 Volume 3] (note that the plates nominate the lithographer in all cases, and sometimes the various artists)
• J. Forbes Boyle (1833-1839) [https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/2913346 Illustrations of the Botany and other branches of the Natural History of the Himalayan Mountains] (note that the plates nominate the lithographer in all cases, and sometimes the various artists)
• Edwards's Botanical Register
• [https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/100912#page/13/mode/1up Ladies' Botany]

Lindley named the Western AustralianGovaerts, R. et al. (2018) [https://powo.science.kew.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:29346-1 Plants of the world online: Drakaea.] Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Retrieved 27 October 2018. orchid genus, Drakaea, to honour her.[https://www.anbg.gov.au/biography/drake-sarah.html Council of Heads of Australasian Herbaria, Australian National Herbarium, Biographical Notes: Drake, Sarah Ann (1803 - 1857)] Retrieved 27 October 2018.

• Sarah Lindley Crease

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Category:1803 births

Category:1857 deaths

Category:British botanical illustrators

Category:British women illustrators

Category:British women botanists

Category:19th-century English women scientists

Category:19th-century British painters

Category:British botanists

Category:British artists

Category:19th-century English women painters

Category:19th-century English painters