Letter from Jos. D. Hooker [Joseph Dalton Hooker] to George Maw
Information
Title
Letter from Jos. D. Hooker [Joseph Dalton Hooker] to George Maw
Record type
Archive
Original Reference
MAW/1/125
Date
21 Dec 1873
Scope & content
Written from Royal Gardens, Kew. Manuscript
Maw’s gifts arrived yesterday; he had not planned on asking for so much, and is charmed; the pink-purple vase is the very one he wrote about, but he likes the blue and the tall jar just as much; the funny shaped jar is beautiful by daylight; the white and grey plaque is perfect, and a graceful design; he longs to visit the works, which have ‘gone ahead’; he thanks him for the gift; the Caughley ware is lovely and he thanks Maw for thinking of his collection; the Saxifraga florulenta drawing arrived safely, though Fitch [Walter Hood Fitch, botanical artist] needs to put more force into the flowers; he has asked Fitch to lithograph it for the ‘Botanical Magazine’, but this will take a couple of months as his hands are full; he is busy with the new rockery, and making an open-air fernery; far more than five of the Parians [plant labels made of a type of biscuit porcelain imitating marble] are broken, and they are sure it has been done by the scythe and mowing machine; they are the best tallies so far and he hopes that the new iron backing will be a success; they are perfect for the beds, but on the grass they are at the mercy of weekly lawn mowing ‘by mere savages’; he would like a lot more for the herbaceous grounds as soon as he can afford them; the plate is excellent, but he thinks that such plates are artistic mistakes, and the glaze cannot be properly distributed as it collects and becomes too thick, causing unwanted shadows, in this example giving the portrait two black eyes