On a frosty morning at a camp in the Canadian Rocky Mountains, a woman in her sixties sat outside her open tent; a campfire kept the cold at bay, and with her brush she was painting a watercolour of a wildflower. A photograph from 1925 captures this scene, and it reveals more about Mary Vaux Walcott (1860-1940) than any studio portrait ever could: The studio of this American botanical watercolourist and naturalist was a tent camp; her subject was a freshly picked flower, which she had to paint before the colours faded.
Anyone who looks closely at her works will find this fieldwork preserved within them. ‘Western service tree Sorbus sambucifolia, 1918’ shows a twig full of orange-red berry clusters amongst finely serrated pinnate leaves; in the bottom right-hand corner, in her handwriting, is written ‘Vermilion Pass 9.15.1918’ - the place and date of the find, just as in a field notebook. ‘American chestnut, Castanea dentata, 1932’ depicts a spiny husk opening to reveal three glossy chestnuts. Against the light background, both twigs appear as though laid out for an identification guide.
This precision had a long history. Born on 31 July 1860 in Philadelphia, Mary Morris Vaux grew up as the eldest child of a wealthy, devout Quaker family. At the age of eight she was given a set of watercolours; at fourteen she painted ‘Untitled - Autumn Leaves, 1874’, a sheet featuring red and autumn-brown maple leaves on a slender twig, alongside which, in red lettering, are the initials ‘M.M.V.’ - Mary Morris Vaux, her maiden name. Following her mother’s death in 1880, she took charge of the household for her father and two brothers. In 1887, the family travelled west for the first time, covering some 10,000 miles by train, carriage, ferry and on horseback, as far as the Illecillewaet Glacier in the Canadian Selkirk Mountains. When the family returned years later, the ice had visibly receded, and their travel impressions gave rise to a series of measurements spanning decades - fixed points in the rock, rope lines, and steel plates painted red each year on the ice, which made it possible to track the retreat of the ice. These observations are regarded as Canada’s first formal glacier study. On 21 July 1900, ten days before her fortieth birthday, Mary Vaux climbed Mount Stephen with two Swiss mountain guides, the first documented ascent of a peak over 10,000 feet by a woman in Canada. Since 1908, a mountain in Jasper National Park has borne her name, named by her friend, the explorer Mary Schäffer Warren - one woman naming a mountain after another.
One summer, a botanist asked her to paint a rare flowering arnica; the result was so compelling that from then on she made a point of seeking out flowering species. On her mountain expeditions, she met Charles Doolittle Walcott, the palaeontologist at the helm of the Smithsonian Institution; in her letters, she addressed him as ‘Thou’ and ‘Thee’, using the archaic Quaker form of address. The two married in 1914; she was 54. From then on, the couple spent three to four months every summer at their camp in the Rockies: he searched for fossils, she painted wildflowers; over the decades, she produced more than 1,000 watercolours. From 1925 onwards, these were published as *North American Wild Flowers*, five volumes comprising 400 loose plates. The New York printer William Edwin Rudge applied layers of waterproof ink to heavy cotton paper and immersed the finished sheets in water until the fibres stood on end and the smooth printed surface once again took on the fine, rough texture of watercolour paper. She herself felt that the result was almost indistinguishable from a painted sheet, and the work earned her the nickname ‘Audubon of Botany’, after the great American bird painter Audubon.
She continued to paint right up until her final decade. ‘Wake-Robin Trillium simile, 1939’ was created when she was 78; the sheet depicts two white, three-petalled flowers beneath broad, strongly veined leaves, and the signature ‘M.V.W. 5.3.’39’ - now using the initials of her married name - indicates the date. She had celebrated her 75th birthday with a 20-mile horse ride, and spent her last summer in the Rockies at the age of 79. On 22 August 1940, Mary Vaux Walcott died whilst staying with friends in St Andrews, in the Canadian province of New Brunswick, shortly after her 80th birthday. Several hundred of her watercolours were later donated as a complete collection to the Smithsonian Institution.
The printers of 1925 were already aware that much depended on the paper for this artist; they dipped each sheet individually into a water bath. At Meisterdrucke, this task is now fulfilled by a very rough, pure-cotton handmade card, which is particularly well-suited to botanical illustrations and centrally positioned motifs; its open surface restores the fine grain of a watercolour to Walcott’s berry clusters and petals. A word of honesty is in order - on very dark areas, individual fibres may come loose; this is the nature of this paper, and we prefer to mention it in advance. For display on the wall, we therefore recommend framing behind glass, for the sake of the rough paper and the wildflower.
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.jpg "American Chestnut Castanea dentata by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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.jpg "Western Mountain Ash (Sorbus sambucifolia) by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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.jpg "Autumn Leaves by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1603645).jpg "Puccoon by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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.jpg "Flowering Dogwood Cornus florida, 1926 by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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.jpg "Wake-Robin by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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.jpg "Prickly Currant, 1919 by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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.jpg "Lodgepole Pine Pinus Contorta murrayana by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1601463).jpg "Tuliptree by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1607873).jpg "Slender Cotton-Grass (Eriophorum chamissonis) by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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.jpg "Umbrella Tree Magnolia Tripetala by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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.jpg "Pussy-ears, Calochortus elegans, 1923. by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1602890).jpg "Buff Pussytoes (Antennaria luzuloides) by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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.jpg "Gray Pussytoes Antennaria howellii, 1921. by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1602974).jpg "Pussy-Toes (Antennaria racemosa) by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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.jpg "Pussy-Toes, Antennaria racemosa, 1918. by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1608903).jpg "Gray Pussytoes (Antennaria howellii) by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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.jpg "Bog-Asphodel, Tofieldia intermedia, 1920. by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1602697).jpg "Pussy-Ears (Calochortus elegans) by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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.jpg "Untitled Mooring and Anchor, 1873. by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1608204).jpg "Untitled (Mooring and Anchor) by Mary Vaux Walcott")
_-_(MeisterDrucke-1608204).jpg)
_-_(MeisterDrucke-1592551).jpg "Pink Pussytoes (Antennaria rosea) by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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.jpg "Beargrass, Xerophyllum tenax, 1924. by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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.jpg "Alpine Fernlife Pedicularis contorta by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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.jpg "Pink Pussytoes, Antennaria rosea, 1916. by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1608648).jpg "Pinkshell Azalea (Azalea vaseyi) by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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.jpg "Maypop Passiflora incarnata, 1926 by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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.jpg "Untitled by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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.jpg "Pussy Willow Salix discolor, 1920. by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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.jpg "Common Butterwort by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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.jpg "Buff Pussytoes Antennaria luzuloides, 1917 by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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.jpg "Bourgeau Rose Rosa bourgeauiana, 1920 by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1603939).jpg "Untitled (Rose) by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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.jpg "Double Bladderpod Physaria didymocarpa by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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.jpg "Untitled by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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.jpg "Alpine Forget-me-not Myosotis alpestris, 1924 by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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.jpg "Untitled--Study of Mushrooms by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1601245).jpg "Strawberry Bush-")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1602773).jpg "Alaska Fleabane by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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.jpg "Golden Star Chrysogonum virginianum by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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.jpg "Iris Iris Species, 1939 by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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.jpg "Group of Flowers by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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.jpg "Capnoides Aureum by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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.jpg "Wild Pea Lathyrus Decaphyllus by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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.jpg "Untitled by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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_(Dryas_drummondii)_-_(MeisterDrucke-1603229).jpg "Yellow Dryad (fruit) by Mary Vaux Walcott")
_(Dryas_drummondii)_-_(MeisterDrucke-1603229).jpg)
.jpg "Rosebud, 1872 by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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.jpg "Untitled (Plant Study) by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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.jpg "Prairie Pentstemon Pentstemon erianthera, 1923 by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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.jpg "Untitled Lily by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1604827).jpg "Green Strawberry Cactus by Mary Vaux Walcott")
_-_(MeisterDrucke-1604827).jpg)
_-_(MeisterDrucke-1606654).jpg "Untitled (Autumn Leaves) by Mary Vaux Walcott")
_-_(MeisterDrucke-1606654).jpg)
_-_(MeisterDrucke-1605088).jpg "Alberta Primrose by Mary Vaux Walcott")
_-_(MeisterDrucke-1605088).jpg)
.jpg "Pentstemon Ambiguus, 1935 by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1602539).jpg "Phacelia by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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.jpg "On the Road to Monument by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1605867).jpg "Flower Study by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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.jpg "Tampa Epidendrum Epidendrum tampense by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1603450).jpg "Sweetbay by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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.jpg "Mitella nuda by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1604829).jpg "Bellflower by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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.jpg "American Twinflower by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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.jpg "Rose-Bay Rhododendron Rhododendron carolinianum, 1932 by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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.jpg "Canada Wild Ginger Asarum canadense by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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.jpg "Rosebud by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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.jpg "Untitled Plant Study by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1606330).jpg "Pussy Willow (Salix discolor) by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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.jpg "Strawberry-Blite Chenopodium capitatum, 1918. by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1606779).jpg "Farewell to Spring (Godetia amoena lilja) by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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.jpg "Flowers from the Mesa by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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.jpg "Nodding Onion by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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.jpg "Cholla Opuntia whipplei by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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.jpg "Untitled, Group of Flowers, 1883 by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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.jpg "Hedge Bindweed Calystegia Convolvulus Sepium by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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.jpg "Group of Flowers, 1881 by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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.jpg "Yaupon by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1606426).jpg "Untitled (Pansies and Ivy) by Mary Vaux Walcott")
_-_(MeisterDrucke-1606426).jpg)
.jpg "White Globeflower Trollius albiflorus, 1899 by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1603738).jpg "Untitled (Pansies) by Mary Vaux Walcott")
_-_(MeisterDrucke-1603738).jpg)
_-_(MeisterDrucke-1604142).jpg "Maypop by Mary Vaux Walcott")
_-_(MeisterDrucke-1604142).jpg)
.jpg "Untitled Pansy by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1601341).jpg "Pineland Blueberry by Mary Vaux Walcott")
_-_(MeisterDrucke-1601341).jpg)
_-_(MeisterDrucke-1602628).jpg "Spider Lily by Mary Vaux Walcott")
_-_(MeisterDrucke-1602628).jpg)
_-_(MeisterDrucke-1605953).jpg "Rose-Bay Rhododendron by Mary Vaux Walcott")
_-_(MeisterDrucke-1605953).jpg)
_-_(MeisterDrucke-1601514).jpg "Northern Onion by Mary Vaux Walcott")
_-_(MeisterDrucke-1601514).jpg)
_-_(MeisterDrucke-1601955).jpg "Lloyd")
_-_(MeisterDrucke-1601955).jpg)
_-_(MeisterDrucke-1603511).jpg "Wild Calla by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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.jpg "Death Camas Zygadenus Venenosus, 1923 by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1604796).jpg "Western Hemlock by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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.jpg "Glacier Lily by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1604341).jpg "Willow by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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.jpg "Untitled--Plant Study, 1904 by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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.jpg "Prickly Currant by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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.jpg "Whippoorwill Flower Trillium hugeri, 1937 by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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.jpg "Jacob")
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.jpg "Wild Flax Linum lewisii, 1919 by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1601176).jpg "Lewis Monkey Flower by Mary Vaux Walcott")
_-_(MeisterDrucke-1601176).jpg)
.jpg "Bellflower Campanula, 1935 by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1603899).jpg "Untitled by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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.jpg "Aleutian Fleabane by Mary Vaux Walcott")
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