James Holland OWS Rose & Bindweed Flower with Ant & Fly

An original mid-19th-century watercolour painting, James Holland OWS, Rose & Bindweed Flower with Ant & Fly.

An exceptional flower painting by James Holland OWS (1799–1870). Holland was a distinguished watercolourist and one of the finest colourists of the English school.

Holland's floral works often have a distinctive decorative quality, in which the posy is 'readable' from various angles without a clear top and bottom. James Holland was employed at the pottery works of William Davenport in Longport from a young age and he came to excel at realistic floral designs for pottery and porcelain—where designs for plates, for example, were required to work from different angles.

This exquisite watercolour shows Holland's expertise in bringing together harmonious colours and floral textures, incorporating flowers, leaves and tendrils of different shapes and scales. Here he uses his favoured device of depicting water droplets on the leaves and petals, bringing a heightened sense of temporal realism to the design.

With gum arabic to intensify the colour. On card with Superfine London Board blindstamp at the upper left corner.