"A small exhibition at the Garden Museum is restoring the story of a botanist who is little known today, but was on the cusp of honours before he died tragically young. At its centre is John Bradby Blake, an English botanist working in Chinese Canton in the late 1760s while employed by the East India Company. But the exhibition's real achievement is in restoring visibility to the Chinese collaborators without whom his work would have been impossible."
"Bradby Blake's botanical ambitions depended on relationships forged in Canton (now Guangzhou), most notably with Whang At Tong 黃遏東 and the botanical artist Mak Sau 麥秀. Their collaboration produced an extraordinary body of work: more than 150 paintings of Chinese plants intended for an unfinished book. For the first time, thirty of those botanical paintings are being shown in the UK, more than 230 years after they were made."
John Bradby Blake worked in Canton in the late 1760s for the East India Company and collaborated closely with Whang At Tong and botanical artist Mak Sau. Their work produced more than 150 paintings of Chinese plants intended for an unfinished book; thirty paintings are now displayed in the UK for the first time in over 230 years. Research notes, books, maps and a 1774 seed 'spreadsheet' document plant collecting and the distribution of seeds, including Juniper sent to Chelsea and Kew. Two large portraits depict Whang At Tong; he brought Blake's documents to England after Blake's death at age 28, preserving his legacy.
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