The Golden Herbarium

About this work

Leaves are laid flat in loose rows across the sheet, each one spaced from its neighbours like specimens mounted by a careful collector. Maple, oak, ginkgo, beech and fern sit side by side, so the eye moves along the rows comparing shapes: lobed, fan-like, oval and feathered. Colour shifts gently from leaf to leaf, through fresh and deep greens to reds, ambers and gold, and the gilded ones catch the light more than the rest. The muted sage-green background keeps the arrangement quiet and lets the variety of outlines carry the interest. Viewed from a distance it becomes an orderly pattern, almost like a textile. Up close, the outline and stem of each leaf turn it into a study sheet worth reading row by row, like a page from a naturalist's album.

Botanists have pressed and dried plants on paper sheets since the 16th century, building herbaria that still serve science today. A herbarium sheet is a record, but it also has an orderly beauty that collectors have long admired. Among these leaves, the fan-shaped ginkgo carries a special story: it is often called a living fossil, the last surviving species of a plant group known from fossils more than 200 million years old.

A natural oak or walnut frame suits its specimen-cabinet feel, and soft daylight in a study keeps the reds and greens even. Golden Ginkgo, close by in portrait, repeats its gold ginkgo fans on a larger scale. The print file is 7680 × 4320 px, about 65 cm wide at 300 dpi, made as sage green wall art above a desk, sofa or console on white, sage or warm wood-toned walls. The separate 4K TV pack contains 3840 × 2160 for the Samsung Frame or any 4K art-mode TV, plus 2560 × 1440 and 1920 × 1080.