Chinese Roses and the West
Angolo Bronzino, ‘An Allegory with Venus and Cupid’ (1540-1550), National Gallery, London.
One of the things about modern roses that fascinates me is the fact that they are hybridized crosses between eastern and western species roses which were engineered by western breeders in the second half of the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries. In my forthcoming book ‘By Any Other Name. A Cultural History of the Rose’, I write about this remarkable example of organic cultural synergy. Below is an adapted extract.
Many years ago I worked as an official tour guide at the National Gallery in London, and one of the most striking, and for some, rather too erotically-charged, paintings I liked to talk about to groups is the Florentine artist Agnolo Bronzino’s Mannerist masterpiece, ‘An Allegory with Venus and Cupid’, painted between 1540 and 1550 , also known as ‘Venus, Cupid, Folly, and Time’ and ‘A Triumph of Venus’. One’s eyes are drawn, as if by some magnetic force, to the hand fondling the breast of Venus, a hand that belongs to Cupid, which means the amorous embrace is decidedly incestuous, as he is her son. At the top left of the painting there is a horrified-looking woman with only half a head, and below her, a man or a woman screaming in agony. At top right, is an old bearded man, Father Time, pulling round or pulling back a blue curtain. The little boy on the far right, who symbolizes Folly, is holding a bunch of pink rose blossoms in his hand and seems about to shower the lovers with them. Behind Folly is a pretty little girl holding a honeycomb, who on closer inspection turns out not to be a girl at all but a bizarre hybrid creature with a nasty looking lizard-like lower half.
The bunch of roses held by Folly looks very like a variety of Rosa chinensis. This supposition is based on the fact that the roses are clearly semi-double blooms rather than single or double, that is, these flowers have more petals than a Gallica but less than, say, a Damask or Cabbage Rose. Also, the flowers have high-centred bloom-forms, so the petals at the centre of the bloom stand above the ones towards the outside, like an inverted cup. In other words, both the number of petals and the shape of the flowers are unlike the familiar Western roses of the period, which, as we saw, were on the whole open in form exposing the sepals at the centre. However, we are unlikely to notice anything very surprising about the shape of the rose flowers in Bronzino’s painting for the simple reason that they look very like what we think of today as ‘typical’ of roses. This is because we are so habituated to looking at Hybrid Tea as Floribunda Roses. In other words, we are used to living with roses that are deliberate crosses between Western and Chinese roses, and whose flowers are usually shaped like the Chinese parent.
If the roses in the Bronzino are indeed Chinas, then this painting can claim to be the first known depiction of a rose from East Asia in Western art, and is an indication that, at least in Italy, such ‘aliens’ were apparently already being cultivated. By the next century, trade had greatly increased between east and west after the setting up of East India Companies by the Dutch and British, and the establishment of trading posts along the Indian coast, and part of this trade was botanical. Especially important for the British was Calcutta, where garden plants from further east were often planted as a way-station, before heading on the long voyage to Europe via the Cape. In his Species Plantarum (1753), Linnaeus includes one rose from East Asia, Rosa indica, a dark red variety was known locally as the ‘Rouge Butterfly’. The Linnaeun name means ‘Indian Rose’, which is an indication that at that time this species rose was associated not with China but with India, from where it had more immediately come. In the mid-eighteenth century, the scientist Nikolaus Joseph von Jacquin described and illustrated a variety of Rosa chinensis in one of his books, and this is probably what a couple of decades later became known as ‘Slater’s Crimson China’, one of the four ‘stud’ China roses which between 1792 and 1824 were picked specifically with the intention of crossing them with Western homegrown varieties.
Together, the resulting mutations caused the enormous changes in the range and characteristics of the rose’s gene pool. These ‘studs’ were: ‘Parsons’ Pink Rose’, ‘Slater’s Crimson’, ‘Hume’s Blush Tea-Scented China’, and ‘Parks’ Yellow Tea-Scented China’ [cover illustration]. Along with a few other native roses, these China and Tea Roses made possible most of the transformations that characterize the rose plant we know today: a bush-like, robust, garden plant with a wide variety of coloured flowers that are large, semi-double, high-centred, and bloom continuously from May to late autumn.
‘Parsons’ Pink Rose’, aka ‘Old Blush’, was brought to Europe as part of the cargo of a merchant ship in 1752, and was in England by 1793. The flowers are of medium size and semi-double, and light silvery-pink that darkens as they age. We now know that his rose owes its characteristic repeat-blooming habit to the fact that it is probably a cross between Rosa chinensis and Rosa gigantea. Soon, ‘Parson’s Pink Rose’ had replaced the ‘Autumn Damask’, the only already existing remontant rose, as everyone’s favourite rose. By 1823, it was said to be in every English cottage garden. Eventually, when it was crossed with the Musk and Dog roses, ‘Parsons’ Pink Rose’ would give rise to numerous very popular descendants - the Noisette, Hybrid Perpetual, and Hybrid Teas families.
Slater’s Crimson’, named in honour of a ship owner, is also known as ‘Old Crimson China’, and is technically Rosa chinensis semperflorens. It was known to the Chinese as the ‘Monthly Rose’ because it was a repeat-flowerer. ‘Slater’s Crimson’ is dark red with white streaks running along the inner petals. The double flowers are borne singly or in clusters of generally three. This, the second important China ‘stud’ rose, was imported to England in 1792 specifically for the repeat-flowering habit. The first specimen had been found growing in the Botanic Gardens in Calcutta, not in China, which is why in France the rose is named ‘La Bengale’. ‘Slater’s Crimson’ is, in fact, the oldest known garden rose - that is, domesticated rose.
The third ‘stud,’ ‘Hume’s Blush Tea-Scented China’, named in honour of Hume’s wife, is also a repeat bloomer, and has large well-proportioned pale pink flowers. But while this rose served initially as an important stud, by the early twentieth century the original plant appeared to have gone extinct in Europe. However, it was rediscovered in far-away Bermuda, where it was going under the alias ‘Spice.’ Today, it can be purchased from specialist rose nurseries.
The fourth stud, Rosa odorata var. pseudindica, ‘Parks’ Yellow Tea-Scented China’, was discovered by John Damper Parks in 1824. It is a repeat bloomer, has a vigorous growth habit, bright green leaves, and very large double or semi-double flowers with an average diameter of 4 inches, which have the unusual characteristic of being straw-or sulphur yellow in colour. The petals are thick and mildly scented – ‘tea scented’. But the consensus is that although this is officially still in commerce, it disappeared 100 years ago.
The cover of my book, which shows a painting by a Chinese artist of ‘Parks’ Yellow Tea-Scented China’.
One of the most interesting collections of botanical art from China was amassed in the early nineteenth century by the Englishman John Reeves, another East India Company tea inspector and amateur botanist. Reeves was stationed in China with the Company prior to the First Opium War (1839-42), and, collected plants in and around Canton in his spare time. He too was often frustrated by having to use Chinese gardeners as go-between due to the restrictions imposed on foreigners, and he had the capital idea of hiring Chinese artists to paint what he did get his hands on. In all, Reeves amassed over 800 pictures. Only 16 are roses, but they include a wonderful image of one of the ‘studs’ - ‘Parks’ Yellow Tea-Scented Rose’. Interestingly, the painting shows a specimen entirely without prickles. This painting of a China Rose graces the cover of my book, which will be published this November by Oneworld..