Homage to Jacquin ("Jacquin's Monument")

The first impression is one of chaos, an overabundance of plants and flowers. Yet this is deceptive for, in fact, the painting depicts the diversity of the plant kingdom that the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus (1707–78) had divided into twenty-four classes, its first systematic classification. Ordering seems also to preoccupy the “scholarly” cockatoo whereas the clumsy monkey represents the exact opposite. Linnaeus oversees events from his urn. But the painting conceals even more. Above the bust portrait of the Viennese botanist Nikolaus Joseph von Jacquin (1727–1817) on the plinth, two inconspicuous plants are intertwined. They are Linnaea borealis and Jacquinia mucronata, named after Linnaeus and Jacquin. This work was painted as a tribute to the latter.

1821-1822

Oil on canvas

218.0 x 164.0cm

3651

Image © Belvedere, Vienna, 2023