Catalogo de las plantas de estos R.les Jardines.
Folio manuscript on paper [31.6 x 22.0 cm]. (16) ff., with two shorter 4to manuscripts of (2) ff. and (1) f. Unbound, tied with string. Very well preserved, neatly written and perfectly legible throughout. Unpublished botanical manuscript recording some 650 species of plant cultivated in the middle of the 19th-century at the famed gardens of the Alcázar of Seville and at the Palacio del Rey, or Coto del Lomo del Grullo, located in the Doñana some 40 kilometers southwest of Seville. The longest document, signed by Claudio Boutelou (1825-1905), Director of the Alcázar gardens, lists nearly 600 species, while the two other documents, one of which is signed by the botanist and Inspector de Bosques Reales, Estéban Boutelou (1823-83), record more than 50 types of trees and shrubs. Estéban indicates that the list was drawn up at royal request in the summer of 1857 to account for Spain’s botanical patrimony in advance of the Exposición de Agricultura to be held in Madrid in September and October of that year. The scientific and Spanish names of each plant are recorded here in double columns, and include a wide range of species, originating everywhere from Seville to Australia, indicating that the Alcázar at the time not only embraced its tradition as one of the oldest and most truly Hispanic expressions of the Mudejar style, but also was adopting a role as a repository for global botanical specimens. That the names ‘Boutelou’ should appear at the bottom of such official botanical surveys comes as no surprise: “The Boutelou Dynasty lasted in the Casa Real for more than 150 years …[and] the Boutelou family was one of the most prominent examples of a single line serving as functionaries to the crown” (on the botanical Boutelous, see J. Gómez Mendoza, “La Administracíon de los Sitios Reales en el Siglo XIX: Jardineros e Ingenieros de Bosques,” especially, pp. 129-34). While Estéban Boutelou continued his career in agronomy and botany with a specialization in forestry, Claudio later turned his attention to the fine arts, becoming Director of the Escuela Profesional de Bellas Artes in Seville and a writer on contemporary art (his La pintura en el siglo XIX was published in 1877). * J. Gómez Mendoza, “La Administracíon de los Sitios Reales en el Siglo XIX: Jardineros e Ingenieros de Bosques, in Historia, Clima y Paisaje, pp. 125-40; Exposición de Agricultura: Catálogo de los Productos Presentados en la Exposición de Agricultura Celebrada en Madrid el Año de 1857.
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