Buds, Bugs, and Birds in the Manuscripts of Esther Inglis

Flowers, bugs, birds, frogs—all and more are found in the manuscripts of Esther Inglis (1570?–1624) now on display in Little Books, Big Gifts, an exhibition highlighting her artistry with pen and brush. Since you can’t flip through all of the pages of the books being shown, let’s take a virtual peek at some of these tiny buds and critters.

Esther learned calligraphy—the art of decorative writing—from her mother, Marie Presot in Edinburgh. Her first work was in black or brown ink, but flowers and critters appear in the color manuscripts she produced in London where she and her husband lived from 1604 to 1607. They followed King James VI of Scotland when he became James I of England in 1603, hoping to receive monetary payments in exchange for manuscripts given to members of the new Stewart court.

In these works Esther created a title page frame with flowers, birds, and butterflies or moths on a gold background, like those found in earlier Flemish manuscripts.

She also scattered these images throughout each book, usually at the top of a page with text from the Bible or moral poems. This detail shows pink flowers at the top of Octonary 10, her translation from a group of French poems.

She copied these designs from several collections of engraved pattern sheets, made for the use of embroiderers, lace-makers, painters, and goldsmiths. One of her main sources was Florae Deae (Goddess of Flowers), a collection made by Jean de Gourmont around 1600. Can you spot the pink flower cluster shown above down in the lefthand corner of this plate?

Sometimes Esther used more than one image from a plate. From this one she took the carnation and strawberry on the top right, and the frog at the bottom, using them on two pages of her manuscript, and doubling the frog—two are better than one!

Artists and embroiderers would make pinprick marks around the images to transfer them to the paper or cloth on which they were working. We know that Esther used this method because pinpricks can be seen on at least one of her own drawings that she wanted to copy into another manuscript. Here are the front and back views of that pricked page. She would have used charcoal to transfer the design to another sheet of paper in a method called “pouncing.”

Another source for her images was a collection of plates known as Fiori Naturali or “Natural Flowers” (ca. 1600). These are very rare because they are the sort of design sheets used up and discarded by many artisans over the years. The only known set of these engravings is in New York at the Pierpont Morgan Library, but many of its flowers were copied from another book, Florilegium (“Collection of Flowers”) by Adriaen Collaert (ca. 1590).  See the rose spray at the bottom?

It was used by Esther in a manuscript she kept with her for her whole life. The page is soiled from much handling. Note how the flowers have been reversed, as would have happened when Esther transferred the design.

Esther had eight children, and much of the time she was working, they would have been around at home, perhaps on occasion spilling ink or getting in the way. However, it’s fun to think that some of the critters like the frogs and caterpillars, she would have shared with them, perhaps even making them copies like those we see in children’s books today. We’ll end with a very fine specimen of a winged moth perched happily on top of the title in a tiny manuscript (1 ¾ x 2 inches) she gave to fourteen-year-old Prince Charles for New Year’s 1615, just before she and her family returned to Scotland.

Author’s note

I am indebted to the work of Anneke Bakker in her essay “Dame Flora’s Blossoms: Esther Inglis’s Flower-Illustrated Manuscripts,” in English Manuscript Studies, 1100–1700, vol. 9 Writings by Early Modern Women, ed. Peter Beal and Margaret J.M. Ezell (The British Library, 2000), 49–72.