MA I597728 TePapa Puawananga-Clematis-indivisa full

Original watercolour of Puawananga (Clematis indivisa) by Sarah Featon, used in the book "The Art Album of New Zealand Flora" by Sarah and Edward Featon.
The Featons collaborated with the Wellington firm Bock & Cousins to publish the first fully coloured art book in New Zealand, using the relatively new medium of chromolithography, which almost bankrupted the firm. The transition from watercolour to colour lithograph involved compromise, and the result in many of Featon’s works is an occasionally garish rendering of her exquisite watercolours.

134 of Sarah Featon’s original watercolours for the Art Album of New Zealand Flora were purchased for the Dominion Museum in 1919.