Farrow and Ball 2019

Vanessa was approached by paint company Farrow & Ball to produce a one-off print to be sent out as part of their worldwide press launch for a new range of paint colours in association with the Natural History Museum, London.

The inspiration for the project came from ‘Werner’s Nomenclature of Colours’, published in 1814 and used by Charles Darwin on his voyage on the Beagle.

It was such a beautiful project to work on. Werner’s catalogue describes colour in a lyrical and exacting style – a blue being, ‘the upper side of the wings of a small heath butterfly’, a vivid green being, ‘the beauty spot on the wing of a Teal drake’….

The resulting image was printed using paints from the new range at the Farrow & Ball factory in Dorset.