Congratulations to Rebecca Cairns from Royal Irish Academy whose blog post has achieved third place in the CONUL Training and Development Library Assistant Blog Awards 2025.
Botanical illustrations have long been used to help us classify and identify plants. Depictions of flora in herbals and florilegia from the 16th century onwards allowed the two previously distinct and separate fields of art and science to be bridged. The art of natural history and botanical illustration would continue to evolve significantly between the 17th-18th centuries, allowing for further ease in understanding the structure and visual characteristics of plants. Many talented women artists actively contributed to this field, but they were seldom credited or acknowledged for their work. The Dublin-born Eileen Barnes (1876-1956)—who was a fastidious artist and talented model-maker—was one such woman.
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Image 1: Drawing 77 (c): S dasyphyllum Linn (left); S. dasyphyllum var. Suendermanni Praeger (right) (RIA Praeger Collection, Box 2a/64/1-78 b) |
After attending the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art (now the National College of Art and Design) between 1888-89, Barnes would go on to produce drawings of objects and construct museum models for the Natural History, Art, and Antiquities divisions in what is now known as the National Museum of Ireland (NMI). There is an early record of her donating a set of model platypus eggs to the museum in 1907 – suggesting that she was being commissioned to create work for the museum without being formally employed. Her name begins to appear intermittently on the museum’s employment registers from 1911 onwards, with her rank as a ‘specimen mounter’ first noted in 1918. Her earlier models include wax depictions of various mollusca, many of which are still on display in the Natural History Museum in Dublin.
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| Image 2: One of Eileen Barnes’ model slugs from the National Museum of Ireland’s collections (NMINH:2008.92.507); image courtesy of The National Museum of Ireland |
While Barnes was immensely skilled in producing models that bore a remarkable resemblance to live subjects, she also collaborated with other well-known scientists and naturalists and produced illustrations for their works. She worked with the lichenologist Matilda Knowles, biologist and ornithologist Annie Massy, and the naturalist Robert Praeger, MRIA.
Praeger was especially reliant on Barnes for creating accurate drawings of Sedum (stonecrop) and Sempervivum (houseleeks) for his published works. Praeger found Sedum to be a particularly difficult plant to work with, as specimens do not dry well and often lose their leaves in the process of being prepared, making them ‘almost useless for comparison with the living plants, and identification is rendered correspondingly difficult’ (Praeger, 2). Barnes would thus draw the plants from Praeger’s live collected specimens, using a hand lens to complete her magnifications. Due to the difficulty of preserving these plants for the herbarium, and a lack of adequate existing herbarium material, these drawings by Barnes hold great value for researchers due to their likeness to the live plants.
Barnes created approximately 300 drawings for Praeger’s publications on Sedum and Sempervivum. The RIA holds 186 of these original drawings, making up a small part of Praeger’s larger collection, which also includes journals, offprints, manuscripts, photographs, and other materials.
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| Image 3: Drawing 57: S. Cockerellii Britton (left); S. Wrightii A. Gray (centre); S. lenophylloides Rose (right) (RIA Praeger Collection, Box 2a/64/1-78 b) Image 4: Drawing 36 (left): S. verticillatum Linn (RIA Praeger Collection, Box 2a/64/1-78 b) Image 5: Drawing 38 (right): S. Ewersii Ledeb. var. homophyllum nov. (RIA Praeger Collection, Box 2a/64/1-78 b) |
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| Image 6: Pages from Praeger’s work on Sedum; showing the above drawing by Barnes in the final publication (RIA MR/31/R/30) |
The unsigned preparatory drawings remain in good condition and show only minor signs of deterioration. They have various cutouts adhered to them, showing curious additions of details, magnifications and different views of each plant. Rough notes are penciled onto some drawings which mention the species’ name and intended placement of the works for Praeger’s final book. These works provide insight into how illustrations were produced and edited in advance of preparing plates for printing.
Outside of the seventeen-year collaboration with Praeger, Barnes did not receive much further recognition after his works on Sedum and Sempervivum had been published in 1932. There seems to only be a few mentions of her name until she was listed as a “botanic artist” in the 1976 edition of Capuchin Annual.
Eileen Barnes’ drawings highlight an important collaboration and clearly demonstrate the exchange of knowledge between the field of visual arts and scientific inquiry. Moreover, the work of Barnes, which is quietly tucked away within Praeger’s larger collection, is a testament to the importance of amplifying the work of women artists and their archives.
References:
Gallagher, Niav. “Barnes, Eileen Elizabeth Janet.” Dictionary of Irish Biography, April 2024, https://www.dib.ie/biography/barnes-eileen-elizabeth-janet-a10351.
Lucy, John. “Eileen Barnes (1876-1956): the contribution of a gifted artist, scientific illustrator and model-maker to Irish natural history.” The Irish Naturalists' Journal, vol. 34, no. 2 (9 October 2015): pp. 113-124. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/44577796.pdf.
Nelson, Charles E. “Robert Lloyd Praeger’s Crassulaceae: a commentary on possible type specimens in the National Botanic Gardens, Dublin, and on illustrations in the Royal Irish Academy, Dublin.” Bradleya, vol. 11, no. 11, Feb. 1993, pp. 91-106.
Praeger, Robert. “An Account of the Genus Sedum as Found in Cultivation.” Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society, vol. 46, 1921, pp. 1-314.
Scannell, Maura. “A work of special value.” In Stars, Shells and Bluebells: Women Scientists and pioneers. Dublin Women in Technology and Science, 1997.
⸻. “Botanic Art and Some Irish Artists.” The Capuchin Annual 1976, pp. 100-111.
* All images were produced by the Royal Irish Academy, with the exception of the image of the model slug, which was provided by the National Museum of Ireland.
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