Artist: Agnes Buchan-Hepburn (Scottish, 1838 – 1926)
Medium: Original watercolor on wove paper
Year: Painted between 1863 – 1891
Dimensions: 5 7/8 x 9 1/8 inches
Framed Dimensions: Approximately 16 x 19 inches
Framing: This piece has been professionally matted and framed using all new materials
Biarritz Basque: is a city on the Bay of Biscay, on the Atlantic coast in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department in the French Basque Country in southwestern France. It is located 35 kilometres from the border with Spain. It is a luxurious seaside tourist destination known for the Hôtel du Palais (originally built for the Empress Eugénie c. 1855), its seafront casinos, and its surfing culture.
Agnes McDouall (n. Buchan-Hepburn) was a Scottish gardener and plant collector.Agnes was the daughter of Helen Little and Sir Thomas Buchan-Hepburn as the second of five children. After the birth into a family of keen gardeners and plant collectors at Smeaton Hepburn, East Linton, her father extended the forests by introducing new conifers that were found by Scottish plant hunters like Robert Fortune and David Douglas. In 1869, she married a landowner James McDouall and relocated to his historic family estate at Logan, close to Stranraer. She brought her own collection of roses, lilies, and shrubs, along with the connections with plant hunters. The plant collection at Logan was later to become famous under her sons, Kenneth and Douglas’s management. She was the first one who grew delicate exotic plants in the garden, and she is also credited with starting the collection of Southern Hemisphere species by planting Logan’s first eucalyptus tree, Eucalyptus urnigera, beneath the ruin of Castle Balzieland in the walled garden (now is called the Logan Botanic Garden) which became a part of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. In 1969, Agnes’s tree was cut down in 1994 due to safety concerns.