Artist Info
Mrs Loudon
Jane Loudon (nee Webb) (1807–1858) was to Victorian gardening what Mrs Beeton was to cookery. Her beautifully illustrated books on gardening and plant identification sold in their thousands and women all over the country were enthused enough by them to take up gardening as a hobby.
She met the horticultural publisher and writer John Loudon who courted and married her within seven months.
Loudon, by her own admission, knew nothing about botany, 'It is scarcely possible to imagine any person more completely ignorant of everything relating to botany than I was at the period of my marriage with Mr Loudon,' but her husband was enthusiastic and expert and she soon became a meticulous, capable gardener ready to aid him with his books.
Jane Loudon was a self taught artist, had begun to illustrate her own books. Her style, which involved grouping the flowers to form bouquets made her designs popular to copy as well as being used for decoupage on trays, lampshades and tables. She made full use of the new technique of chromolithography which made print production much faster and enabled her to increase her output.
