The credit for introducing François Balthazar Solvyns to Calcutta rests on my father, Nirmal Chandra Kumar, the antiquarian who on finding a rare print of the artist started collecting his work. From here he started promoting him in a great way. He went out of his way to persuade collectors, friends and aficionados to collect Solvyns.
However, the credit for introducing William Roxburgh is solely mine. I do not want to share it with my father. Being an avid plant lover I came across a print of Roxburgh in our collection and was fascinated by it. The details of this Botanical Litho Print was so exacting that it immediately attracted me. Thus I traced the artist and started collecting his work.
I am fond of Roxburgh for his extensive recording of the flora and, particularly of Bengal. I have in my collection not only a set of Flora Indica; or Descriptions of Indian Plants but also some loose plates which I present to my friends, those lovers of plants. And till date have spread his work far and wide.
William Roxburgh was a Scottish surgeon and botanist who worked extensively in India, describing species and working on botany. He is known as the founding father of Indian botany. Roxburgh commissioned life-size coloured drawings by the Indian artists, using natural vegetable dyes of almost all the species. These drawings were made between 1780 and 1815. The volumes contain more than 300 exquisite aquatint plates painted by hand. It is interesting to note that most of the drawings and the colouring has been done by Indian Artists mainly from Murshidabad.
William Roxburgh came to Calcutta in 1793 to take charge as Superintendent of the Calcutta Botanical Gardens. He was invited to fill the position of Superintendent at the Calcutta Botanical Garden, where the death of Colonel Robert Kyd had created a vacancy. After joining he started working on a catalogue of the garden illustrated by careful hand painted drawings made by Indian artists and accompanied by taxonomic descriptions which later became the foundation of Flora Indica,
After the demise of Dr. William Roxburgh in February 1815, William Carey posthumously edited and published Roxburgh's Flora Indica; or Descriptions of Indian Plants from Serampore Press in 1832.
