Passionflowers

Passionflowers is the only known surviving oil painting by Ferdinand Bauer. It is one of four oil paintings exhibited by him in London at the Royal Academy in 1813. The striking floral arrangement depicts three species of the passionflower: Passiflora alata (front), P. caerulea (top) and P. holosericea. Bauer most likely sourced these specimens from the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, where his older brother worked as a botanical artist, appointed by Sir Joseph Banks. The passionflower fascinated Bauer all his life and he painted many examples in watercolour, the first when he was a student in Feldsberg and the last in the year before he died.

A decade before creating this painting, Bauer had famously accompanied Matthew Flinders on his exploratory voyage to Australia. Choosing to remain in Sydney for a short period after Flinders’s departure in 1803, Bauer sketched over one thousand plants and two hundred animals.

Elle Freak, Associate Curator of Australian Paintings and Sculpture