Featuring our newest design collaboration with the beloved New York Botanical Garden, Halsted Floral is a reimagining of several works from an album of pith flowers created by Maria E. Halsted in the mid-nineteenth century.
The album of pith flowers was donated to the LuEsther T. Mertz Library in 1902. Cut paper collage work is time consuming and detail oriented work but when completed the results are immediately appealing.
The tradition of the Halsted album closely follows the paper cutouts of the famed Georgian courtier Mary Delaney (1700-88). Her realistic flower collages were crafted from many shades of colored paper built up in layers while paying careful attention to anatomical details. She carefully glued her flowers in place and sometimes added watercolor detailing. Mrs. Delaney’s works became widely known and praised, engendering a number of artists who copied her technique. Maria Halsted’s album was created using many of Mrs. Delaney’s techniques but with the used of colored pith paper which was not readily available in Mrs. Delaney’s time.
