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Blake, Edith (née Osborne)

Biography: Edith Osborne Blake (1845–1926), botanical artist and writer, was born in County Tipperary. In 1872, she travelled widely throughout Europe, visiting Austria, Germany, Italy, Sicily, Greece, and Turkey. On her travels she made extensive notes and sketches of the areas she visited. These studies provided the basis for 'Twelve months in southern Europe', published by Chapman and Hall in 1876, which included four of her illustrations. Further travels, to areas such as the Bahamas and Jamaica, led to Osborne Blake developing an interest in botany and an exhibition of her botanical watercolours was held at the Museum of Science and Art, Dublin in 1894. A number of her studies of Jamaican butterflies and moths are held in the library of the Natural History Museum, London and examples of her work are part of Dublin’s National Botanic Gardens’ collection.