Orchids: The Beauty of Contrivance

For Darwin, orchids represented another kind of beauty in nature: fitness of form for purpose. In his book On the Various Contrivances by which British and Foreign Orchids are Fertilised by Insects (1862), Darwin wrote that they ‘transcend in an incomparable manner the contrivances and adaptations which the most fertile imagination of man could invent.’ His fascination for the idiosyncratic beauties of their forms was far from unusual in the Victorian period, and ultimately derived from the traditions of natural theology. However, unlike artists such as Philip Gosse, Darwin considered nature's beautiful forms not as evidence of the 'creative intelligence of the divine artificer', but rather as the effect of the process of natural selection. Over time, an organism evolved features – many extremely beautiful – that gave it an advantage in the on-going struggle for existence. Darwin’s book quickly came to be considered the last word on orchid fertilisation, and brought him into contact with the many orchid enthusiasts in the nineteenth century. From the 1830s numerous new species were imported from South America and Asia and a host of specialist journals and magazines published tips for cultivation. Painters, too, exploited the rage for the exotic flora; many, such as Cornelius Durham, were commissioned by ambitious growers to paint their entire collections.

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Cornelius Durham (fl. 1827–1865)

Cattleya dolosa Rchb. fil. (Reichenbach filius), ca. 1860

Watercolour and gouache over graphite on card

Between 1859–63, the miniature painter Cornelius Durham painted over three hundred watercolors of orchids in the collection of Sir John Day, one of the most ardent orchid enthusiasts of the nineteenth century. Day acquired his example of Cattleya labiata from a collector in Liverpool in 1861 for the huge sum of £21.

Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

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Cornelius Durham (fl. 1827–1865)

Dendrobium densiflorum var. albo-luteum (Dendrobium thyrsiflorum), 1866

Watercolour and gouache over graphite

This showy species was extremely popular among orchid enthusiasts. It was grown with particular success by the comte de Germiny at his home in the Château de Gouville, near Dijon in France.

Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge