I recently rediscovered a book in my personal library called, “The Flowers and Gardens of Madeira” (publishers Adam and Charles Black, 1909), illustrated and written by Ella and Florence Du-Cane. The book evokes a genteel moment in time when a pair of traveling women might have found a freedom of expression in the writings and artistic considerations of private, walled, and public gardens. Ella’s pen, ink and watercolor paintings are charming studies of flowers in-situ: fountains, pathways, terraces and cliff sights, all stunning in detail, color and composition. Along with Florence’s in depth descriptions and historic references, the Du-Canes fulfill an image of a one time Mediterranean paradise, and a more romantic era.

Now an antique, the illustrations and colorful narrative in “The Flowers and Gardens of Madeira” brings to minds eye the end of the "Gilded Age," and perhaps a scene executed by the master watercolorist himself John Singer Sargeant. The painting would feature the sisters Du-Cane in ankle length dresses under parasols, one with a sketchpad, the other taking notes. At the plaza water fountain, arm in arm on a cobbled road, or perhaps sharing tea with Edith Wharton and Henry James in the shade of a villa garden by a wall dripping in Bougainvillea spectabile, with its brick-red blossoms.

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