Editorial Reviews Alexandre Jean Baptiste Brun, painter of maritime scenes and family portraits, was commissioned in the 1890s by one Emile Libreck to paint outstanding specimens from his orchid collection. The finished paintings remained in obscurity until they won the Gold Medal at the 1981 orchid show of the Royal Horticultural Society. The present work combines 59 full-page reproductions of these watercolors with facing-page captions by Dr. Cribb, curator of the orchid herbarium at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. He also closes the book with an essay on orchids, but Brun's extraordinary watercolors, glowing in rich colors against dark backgrounds, are the heart of the work. Lacking the precise detail typical of the genre, they have a painterly, dreamy quality. This is an exquisite book for larger art and botany collections.-- Richard Shotwell, Hancock Shaker Village, Pittsfield, Mass.