Meet our Fellows: Q&A with John Bradby Blake Researcher Josepha Richard
OSGF
Many of the rare books, artwork, and other objects in the Oak Spring Garden Library’s vast collection may be hundreds of years old, but they still hold secrets and surprises. Since we began offering our Stacy Lloyd III Fellowship for Bibliographic Study in 2018, we have supported a range of fascinating explorations of the collection, among them the research of Josepha Richard, one of our two 2020 Fellows.
Portrait of Bradby Blake, c. 1770, likely by artist Simon Beauvais. Bradby Blake died in Canton (now Guangzhou) in 1773, at just 28 years old.
Josepha is a historian specialised in 18-19th century China, with a specific interest in the urban history of Guangzhou (Canton) and Sino-Western interactions under the Qing dynasty (1644-1911). She is currently a postdoctoral fellow in Chinese history at the department of Historical Studies in Bristol University, England.
Josepha first began working with the Oak Spring Garden Foundation in 2018 as part of the John Bradby Blake project, an effort from a team of researchers to learn more about the English botanist and trader and his extensive documentation of Chinese flora. Blake (1745 - 1773) worked with translator and interlocutor Whang-at-Tong and artist Mauk-Sow-U* to create a series of botanical paintings of Chinese plants that are housed at the Oak Spring Garden Library (you can learn more about Blake in this 2018 article from the Financial Times).
Josepha received the Stacy Lloyd III award this year in order to continue her research into the botanist. As part of her grant, she will be comparing Blake’s painting commissions and manuscripts held in OSGF with other archives containing parts of Blake’s collections in the UK.
Due to COVID-19, her visit to Oak Spring has been postponed until 2021, but she has been keeping plenty busy across the pond. We recently caught up with Josepha and asked her to tell us a little bit about herself and her research. Scroll down to learn more. To follow her project, find her on Twitter at @GardensofChina.
What are you currently working on, in regards to your Blake research project?
At the moment I am working on indexing new manuscripts and printed books that used to be in Blake’s collection and were recently discovered in Canterbury Cathedral Library, England. Several of these documents are intimately related with the Blake collection in the Oak Spring Garden Foundation and it is very exciting to be able to explore their connections. I am also working on several academic articles using the data coming from the different Blake collections, and my second article on Blake’s paintings is now in press in the modern Chinese history journal Ming Qing yanjiu.
How did you first become interested in researching John Bradby Blake?
Blake lived in end-of-18th century Canton in China, where he commissioned the paintings kept in OSGF, and wrote notes on Chinese plants. Blake could stay in Canton because his daytime job was to be a supercargo for the British East India Company, involved in the tea trade. The China Trade went through specific Chinese intermediaries, the Hong merchants. My PhD thesis was concerned with the Hong merchants’ gardens, including the plants the latter contained. As a result I was kindly invited to the first Blake conference to take place in Oak Spring Garden Foundation in May 2017. As a preparation, I consulted the digital versions of the paintings and manuscripts and found many exciting similarities between my PhD research and the exceptional OSGF Blake collection. My interest was confirmed when I could consult the originals during the conference, and I have since developed my research towards early Sino-Western scientific collaborations.
Illustration by Bradby Blake and Mauk-Sow-U, held in the Oak Spring Garden Library.
What is the most interesting thing you’ve come across over the course of your research?
There is a long list! I have found the different mentions to Chinese people in Blake’s papers the most tantalizing. It is very rare to find direct mention of named Chinese people beyond the most famous Hong merchants in the contemporary manuscripts. It seems that Blake was close with his painter, Mak Sau, as well as his translator, Whang Ah Tong, but he also interacted with other unnamed Chinese go-betweens such as gardeners, whom he references regularly. The OSGF Blake collection allows us a peek in a previously unseen part of 18th century Sino-Western interactions.
What do you hope people learn, or take away, from your research?
Illustration by Bradby Blake and Mauk-Sow-U, held in the Oak Spring Garden Library.
I have found that the Blake collection will allow for an array of publications in the domains of art history, history of science, Sino-Western encounters, as well as economic and colonial history. My hope is that of an inter-disciplinary researcher: that whatever of these aspects first interested the people that will read my research, that they will subsequently want to read more on those different yet related fields thanks to the exceptional aspect of Blake’s 18th century project.
You have visited the Oak Spring Garden Library before. What was your experience like?
The OSGF library is a dream come true for a researcher. I have never found quite such a unique blend of beauty and practicality, comfort and access to rare books and artworks. In particular, I have found the availability of different manuscripts of Western botanical artworks to compare with Blake’s hybrid Sino-British botanical paintings invaluable.
Just for fun - when you’re not working, what do you like to do in your free time?
I am a foodie and like to discover new food and learn to bake new things myself.
Is there anything else you’d like to say?
I encourage any researcher to apply for a fellowship with OSGF, it has been a very rewarding and exceptional experience for me.
Josepha’s project on botanist John Bradby Blake is just one example of the range of research the Stacy Lloyd III Fellowship for Bibliographic Study supports. If you are an early career scholar in the humanities whose work is related to plants, gardens, or landscapes, consider applying – the deadline for the 2021 fellowship is August 12.
We are also still accepting applications for a number of other opportunities in 2021, aimed at artists, scientists, conservationists, writers, and more. More information can be found at osgf.org/residencies and osgf.org/fellowships.
*Also written as Mak Sau