This drawing belongs to an album of 59 botanical watercolours on paper attributed to the Huguenot artist Jacques Lemoyne de Morgues. Some of these, like the present one, are double sided. Dated around 1575, the present work shows A melon with a slice taken out of it on the recto, and a cucumber on the verso. Although Lemoyne has been long known as an obscure artist providing designs for simple woodcuts, his botanical watercolours which were rediscovered at the beginning of the 20th century have earned him a place in history as one of the most remarkable early botanical painters.
