2020 Essays

Keeping Dry Flowers in the Same State All Year

Sellar, Caitlyn

The recipe “Keeping dry flowers in the same state all year” (fol. 120v–121r) reflects the author-practitioner’s wider preoccupation with the preservation of flora and fauna for display. In this recipe, he provides instructions for drying a particular set of flowers with sand and preserving them in vases of vinegar. Through an examination of the language of the recipe as well as his uses of vinegar, sand, and flowers elsewhere in the manuscript, this essay seeks to highlight the author-practitioner's familiarity with sand and vinegar as preservative materials and postulates that an accumulation of botanical knowledge likely informed his attempt to achieve a more lifelike result. Moreover, his selection of flowers suggests that he was attuned to the cultural meanings of flowers and floral decoration in the late sixteenth century. A reconstruction of the recipe demonstrates that extensive knowledge of the materials is important not only to the outcome but to their handling. The author-practitioner’s vague instructions suggest that he was familiar with the processes of preservation he describes, further underscoring his experience with and interest in preserving organic materials.