Pansies were my grandmother’s favorite flowers. They’re pretty in a somewhat quiet way, often overlooked by more dramatic and larger flowers.
This drawing of large pansies was used more like a page spacer than a featured illustration in an 1867 French work about flowers. It’s sadly overlooked in some digital collections. The book Les fleurs animées is full of colorful satirical drawings of French women as flowers. But, I think many of the black and white drawings in between those caricatures are the true stars.
What makes this pansy drawing even more useful is that you could easily make the flowers be whatever colors you choose. You could follow the lead of nature or you could create your own colorful species.
The drawing you see here is but a fraction of the size of the original – when printed it covers an entire page. If you would like to save it for your own use, just click on the illustration above to view the full-sized version.
This image is copyright free and in the public domain anywhere that extends copyrights 70 years after death or at least 120 years after publication when the original illustrator is unknown.
