Cock-Head Waterlily
1780
paint
From the collection of Victoria and Albert Museum
1780
paint
From the collection of Victoria and Albert Museum
Dominant colour
Cock-Head Waterlily is a 1780 paint by Unknown, a Rococo painting work, held at Victoria and Albert Museum.
This painting shows a waterlily with a unique name, 'Cock-head waterlily'. It's part of a set of 24 paintings, each with a Chinese name for the plant. The interest in foreign plants was big in Britain back then, with travelers bringing back paintings of tropical flowers. To learn more about similar artwork, check out the museum: Victoria and Albert Museum.
A rectangular watercolour painting from around 1780 depicts white flowers and broad leaves set against a pond-like ground. Part of a set of 24 works, each piece is inscribed with a Chinese plant name, though the specific botanical identity of the "cock-head waterlily" remains uncertain. The series reflects the 18th-century British fascination with unfamiliar flora and fauna, often brought back by travellers as paintings rather than live specimens. Acquired from E. Parsons in 1889, the work entered the collection as part of a documented provenance research project in 2022.
Read the full account in the museum source.
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