Fleurs, fruits et feuillages choisis de l'île de Java

Berthe Hoola van Nooten

Fleurs, fruits et feuillages choisis de l'île de Java (Flowers, Fruits and Foliage Selected from the Island of Java) is a magnificent folio of forty chromolithographed plates printed by P. Depannemaeker after Berthe Hoola van Nooten.  Accompanied by Berthe’s descriptive text, in both French and English, the plates reflect a mixture of indigenous, naturalised and introduced Javanese fruits, flowers and shrubs.  Resplendent in rich hues of red, green, yellow, orange and mauve, the illustrations lend themselves perfectly to the then relatively new technique of chromolithography.

Dutch botanical artist Berthe Hoola van Nooten was born in 1817 in Utrecht, Holland.[1]  Little else is known of her early life, other than her 1838 marriage to Dirk Hoola van Nooten, who worked as a judge in Paramaribo in the Dutch colony of Suriname, South America.[2]  With her husband, Berthe travelled frequently between Suriname and Batavia (now Jakarta), and developed a keen interest in the plants she saw, sending specimens back to Holland.[3] 

In 1847 Dirk died, leaving a widowed Berthe with five children to raise and significant financial debts.[4]  Her grief and dire financial circumstances were palpable, describing them herself as:

Death may not have snatched away from you, the arm which was your sole support… bereavement may not have entered your dwelling, like mine, as with one sudden stroke to tear away the veil of sweet illusions, which, as yet, had hidden from your eyes the stern realities of life – to place you, with a lacerated heart, a shrinking spirit and a feeble and suffering body, before an unpitying necessity, which presents no other alternative than labour.[5]    

Unable to afford the passage back to Holland, and exiled in Java, she began to paint watercolours of the exotic Javanese plants with the aim of clearing her debts.[6]  Her initial attempts to publish them, however, were unsuccessful and it was not until Mathilde-Sophie, Queen Consort of the Netherlands, stepped in that the illustrations made it into print.[7]  The result would be Berthe’s exquisite 1863 Fleurs, fruits et feuillages choisis de l'île de Java, which included forty lithographed versions of her illustrations, depicting a range of tropical and citrus fruits, native shrubs and trees, blossoms and flowers and ornamental plants such as the spectacular Poinsettia. 

Lagerstroemia Regia

A fine example of colour pictures printed by lithography, Berthe’s illustrations are matched by the extraordinary talent of chromolithographer Pieter de Pannemaeker, a prolific watercolour artist and printmaker in his own right.  Having contributed an estimated 3,000 illustrations to a range of publications, his works appeared in some of Europe’s finest horticultural journals, including Flore des Serres et des Jardins de l'Europe (Flowers of the Greenhouses and Gardens of Europe).[8]

Despite the publication of three editions of Fleurs, fruits et feuillages choisis de l'île de Java, Berthe died in poverty in Batavia in 1892.[9] 

The University of Adelaide Library holds the third edition, published c1880.  In 2016 it underwent significant conservation work via the Library’s Adopt-a-Book program.  This involved repairs to its cover and spine, and also included new custom-made housing to ensure its ongoing protection.