Tacsonia

Created by Mackintosh on a holiday visit to Portugal with his wife, Mary Macdonald Mackintosh, this is a stylized depiction of the Tacsonia plant in several stages of development, including seed pods, developing and full flower, and fruit. The various parts of the plant, including leaves, are drawn in pencil, with some elements enhanced iwth watercolor in shades of green, pink, purple and yellow.

Charles Rennie Mackintosh is perhaps best known for his furniture and architectural designs. From the beginning of his career, however, he believed that art and architecture were intertwined. While he was an architectural apprentice, Mackintosh attended evening classes at the Glasgow School of Art, where he met Herbert MacNair, Frances Macdonald, who would later marry MacNair, and her sister Margaret (who would later wed Mackintosh). Together they formed "The Four," producing watercolors, poster designs, and small decorative objects. The Tacsonia watercolor is an example of the work done by Mackintosh on annual holidays he took with Margaret and, at times, the MacNairs. Margaret's initials in the cartouche on the painting are believed to indicate only that she was with Mackintosh when he painted it, not that she painted any part of it.