Lilla S. Primrose Flowers & Leaf Study

Flowers of Oxford & Switzerland: Lilla S. Watercolours 1880s

This attractive watercolour forms part of a collection of botanical drawings sketched in Oxford and Switzerland. The artist was a female named 'Lilla S.', believed to be Lizzie Stephenson Stanton (1860–1946), who sketched some of the drawings whilst visiting her uncle, Rev Henry Jardine Bidder (1847–1923), who was bursar of St John's College, Oxford, and keen Alpine gardener. Bidder was responsible for adding the rock garden in the college gardens.

Lizzie Stephenson Stanton was named in honour of the locomotive engineer Robert Stephenson (1803–1859). Her mother, Elizabeth Harby Bidder (1839–1931), was the daughter of the celebrated engineer and calculating prodigy George Parker Bidder (1806–1878). Consequently, her godfather was the 'Father of Railways', George Stephenson (1781–1848); Elizabeth travelled to Egypt with his son Robert Stephenson in 1858, where she met her future husband, John Harrison Stanton (1829–1903), an engineer on the Alexandria-Cairo railway. Elizabeth and John returned to Egypt on their honeymoon in 1860, and Lizzie (or 'Lilla S') was born later the same year.