FISH-DISH.
With drainer having modelled trout painted in natural colours. From Flora Danica service made for Catherine II, Empress of Russia.
(At Rosenborg Castle, Copenhagen.)
Theodor Holmskjold, the Botanist.—The patron, as we have seen, was the Crown Prince Frederik. The artist entrusted with the painting of the work was A. C. Baÿer, but the guiding spirit of the enterprise undoubtedly was Theodor Holmskjold, who was a botanist of some distinction, had studied under the world-renowned Von Linné at Upsala, and was his favourite pupil. Holmskjold, a director of the factory throughout the great Juliane Marie period, and almost to the end of Müller's long control, brought the scientific spirit of exactitude into the field of decorative art. Originally by name Holm, he took, after his ennoblement in 1781, the title of Holmskjold. He was professor of medicine and natural history at Söroe, the Danish Eton, where he planned a botanical garden, and later he took part in the management of the Botanical Gardens at Copenhagen. His work on Danish Fungi is distinguished by the artistic excellence of the illustrations, which were made by Baÿer. In 1767 he became postmaster-general of Copenhagen. In 1772, the year of the masked ball at Christiansborg, we find him cabinet secretary to Queen Juliane Marie. Undoubtedly at that time the man of science put aside his dried specimens to join in the whirl of politics and Court intrigue which ended in the seizure of Struensee and Queen Matilda—the gallows-tree for the dictator and imprisonment for Denmark's young queen. The classification of fungi was seemingly little enough preparation for the pinking of Court butterflies, when plots of assassination were rife, and when the actors' heads were not secure on their shoulders. But Holmskjold, together with another student, Suhm, the historian, who came from his library and helped to make history, ably acquitted himself. He was a trusted confidant of Queen Juliane Marie. It was he who induced the queen to take up Müller's company, and himself (then Holm) became one of the directors.
Long after Queen Juliane Marie's power had waned, we find him true to his allegiance to her, as in 1792 he became chamberlain to her Court. His connection with Müller was intimate. A widower in 1780, Müller married Holm's somewhat elderly sister. In brother-in-law Holm Müller found a good patron. His position at the Court, his relationship with Müller, his intense desire to win renown for an enterprise to which he had himself obtained the royal appellation, made him at once a powerful and interested ally. He died in 1793, before the final completion of the great service to which his influence had contributed so much, but not before he had seen the establishment of the Royal Copenhagen porcelain under the régime of Queen Juliane Marie, his mistress, attain great eminence and distinction.
It is impossible to ignore Holmskjold's special and particular influence on the character of the decorations of the great Copenhagen Catherine II service. The personality of the botanist-director is here evident. But apart from this individual influence, in an examination of the causes likely to have contributed to the style of decoration employed, passing mention must be made of the great national enterprise planned by Oeder in 1761: the original idea being that all European Governments should contribute to a series of volumes illustrating the complete flora of Europe. By this scientific co-operation duplication was thus to be avoided, and each plant would be described once only.
Denmark alone took sufficient interest in the botanical work to complete it. Austria touched the fringe of her flora with five hundred illustrations, and Russia contributed a hundred. So the Flora Danica, under the guidance of several generations of botanists, ploughed its solitary furrow alone. The first volume, containing the first three parts, was issued by Oeder in 1766. The plants were painted in situ by zealous artist-botanists who travelled to the remote districts of Denmark. This magnificent undertaking was in its earliest stages when the great porcelain service was in contemplation.
It is interesting here to note the further history of the great botanical work. Five parts were issued by O. F. Müller from 1775 to 1787. Vahl, the great botanist, who died in 1804, followed on by another five parts, and the next seventeen parts, extending over a period of thirty-five years, were under the editorship of J. W. Horniman, who published a history of the progress of the work from its inception down to 1836. By royal decree in 1847 it was decided to accept illustrations of Swedish and Norwegian plants not found in Denmark, thus increasing the scope and value of the work. It was to be completed in fifty-one parts, and not until the year 1883 was this great botanical work of the Flora Danica pronounced finished!