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Jessie Wei-Hsuan Chen

@jessiewhchen.bsky.social

410 followers 280 following 72 posts

Historian of art, science, and knowledge. Postdoc #VisualizingTheUnknown, @huygensknaw.bsky.social. Also a maker. https://jessieweihsuanchen.com/

jessieweihsuanchen.com

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Jessie Wei-Hsuan Chen @jessiewhchen.bsky.social · 14d

Printed copies of Everlasting Flowers are gorgeous! But the digital version is #openaccess for anyone to read: brill.com/display/titl....

A book presentation takes place at the KB in The Hague on 3 December. You are warmly invited! To register: tickets.kb.nl/nl-NL/Show/D...

Please share!

Printed copies of the book, with one copy open to pages 196 and 197, and the two that are stacked showing the cover.

Flyer for the book presentation, with the text reads as the following.

Left-hand side:
Book Presentation, 3 December 2025, KB, National Library, Prins Willem-Alexanderhof 5, The Hague

Right-hand side:
Programme
14:00 Walk-in
14:30 Welcome and opening, Esther van Gelder (KB, nationale bibliotheek), Editors of series Emergence of Natural History and De Gruyter Brill.
14:50 Book presentation, Jessie Wei-Hsuan Chen (Huygens Instituut/KNAW).
15:10 Gifting of physical copies
15:15 Panel discussion:
State of the field(s) and practical knowledge
Moderator: Marieke Hendriksen (Huygens Instituut/KNAW)
Panelists: Marlise Rijks (Vrije Universiteit Brussel), Sietske Fransen (Bibliotheca Hertziana/Max Planck Institute), Trude Dijkstra (Universiteit van Amsterdam), Jessie Wei-Hsuan Chen (Huygens Instituut/KNAW).
16:00 Introduction to pop-up show. Display of reconstructions and creative projects related to the book.
16:15 Drinks / Borrel, Opportunity to see the pop-up show and book table featuring volumes from the Emergence of Natural History series.
17:00 End of event

Free admission with limited space.
Please register at https://tickets.kb.nl/nl-NL/Show/Details/Book-presentation-
Everlasting-Flower-Between-the-Pages--3-dec-134063.
Link to book: https://brill.com/display/title/70483

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Jessie Wei-Hsuan Chen @jessiewhchen.bsky.social · 14d

Thank you, Sarah! I learned a lot from your work for my own reconstructions!

Jessie Wei-Hsuan Chen @jessiewhchen.bsky.social · 14d

Your parchments were super helpful for the writing of this book!

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Jessie Wei-Hsuan Chen @jessiewhchen.bsky.social · 14d

Thank you, Sara!

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Jessie Wei-Hsuan Chen @jessiewhchen.bsky.social · 14d

It was such a positive experience working with @dominikhhh.bsky.social and @degruyterbrill.bsky.social. So honored to be part of the series Emergence of Natural History. Thank you for all the support in getting this book published!

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Jessie Wei-Hsuan Chen @jessiewhchen.bsky.social · 14d

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Reposted by Jessie Wei-Hsuan Chen

De Gruyter Brill Medieval & Early Modern Studies @dgb-mem.bsky.social · 15d

As autumn sets in, take a look at flowers that bloom forever
🌸🍂
In this new illustrated #openaccess book @jessiewhchen.bsky.social approaches 17th-c. florilegia as material objects reflecting the diverse plant knowledge of gardeners, compilers & image-makers!

brill.com/display/titl...

#EarlyModern

Book cover with a dark green floral patterned background. Title: “Everlasting Flowers between the Pages: The Making of Seventeenth-Century Florilegia” by Jessie Wei-Hsuan Chen, published by Brill in the series “Emergence of Natural History 9.” The cover illustration shows several varieties of red and pink anemones, taken from Franciscus de Geest’s Jardin de rares et curieux fleurs, second half of the seventeenth century (Oak Spring Garden Foundation, Upperville, VA).

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Jessie Wei-Hsuan Chen @jessiewhchen.bsky.social · 25d

Thank you Laura!

Jessie Wei-Hsuan Chen @jessiewhchen.bsky.social · Sep 3

Thank you Luiza!

Jessie Wei-Hsuan Chen @jessiewhchen.bsky.social · Sep 2

Thank you, Maura!

Jessie Wei-Hsuan Chen @jessiewhchen.bsky.social · Sep 2

Thank you, Yun!

Jessie Wei-Hsuan Chen @jessiewhchen.bsky.social · Sep 1

Thank you Sarah!

Jessie Wei-Hsuan Chen @jessiewhchen.bsky.social · Sep 1

Thank you, Trude!

Jessie Wei-Hsuan Chen @jessiewhchen.bsky.social · Sep 1

Surprise publication day! Earlier than anticipated, you can now read my #firstbook (digital version in #openaccess) or order a printed copy through the link. Official announcement and info on book presentation event coming soon!

brill.com/display/titl...

#NatHist, #HistNatHist, #flowers

Everlasting Flowers between the Pages

"Everlasting Flowers between the Pages" published on 28 Aug 2025 by Brill.

brill.com

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Jessie Wei-Hsuan Chen @jessiewhchen.bsky.social · Aug 27

It was really interesting and addicting! I want to make more!

Jessie Wei-Hsuan Chen @jessiewhchen.bsky.social · Aug 26

I found a unique lampworking workshop where I learned how to make mung bean sprouts when visiting family in Taiwan last month. These are not skilled glasswork, but I have made my first models of economic botany of some sort! With a bonus clear sprout for further experimentation with glass painting.

Photo of the author pulling a cane from a white glass rod in front of a torch.

Photo of five pieces of mung bean sprouts made of glass. One is in clear glass, two have translucent white stems and light yellow embryos, and two have translucent white stems and green embryos.

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Jessie Wei-Hsuan Chen @jessiewhchen.bsky.social · Jun 25

Fascinating! This reminds me of other aesthetic borders in seventeenth-century albums that also have an amalgamation of (copied) images, albeit done very differently.

Reposted by Jessie Wei-Hsuan Chen

The Linnean Society of London @linneansociety.bsky.social · Jun 25

June's Treasure of the Month is our new digitised collections - Linnean Online.

The platform makes images of our herbaria, specimen and manuscript collections available for researchers around the world. It will also allow us to grow this important resource in the future.

Read more: buff.ly/8E3OiOT

The Linnean Online entry 'Cassia glauca' part of the Buchanan-Hamilton Drawings collection. It shows a drawing of yellow flowers on a stem with small, light green leaves and a single pea pod, with metadata on the left-hand side.

The Linnean Online entry 'Papilio menelaus' part of the Insect specimen collection. It shows a blue butterfly, with metadata on the left-hand side.

The Linnean Online entry 'Artocarpus incisus' part of the Anderson Manuscripts collection. It shows a Triangular shaped tree with a man in blue shorts sitting in a relaxed posture underneath, with metadata on the left-hand side.

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Jessie Wei-Hsuan Chen @jessiewhchen.bsky.social · Jun 25

This is so interesting! Do you know if the images were reproduced through intaglio printing?

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Jessie Wei-Hsuan Chen @jessiewhchen.bsky.social · Jun 23

Back to the #MuseumBoerhaave to work with two rare compound microscopes from the 17th-c., one made by Giuseppe Campani and another attributed to John Marshall as the maker. So many new thoughts emerged from observing how colors and form changed under the lenses. #VisualizingTheUnknown #histsci

Photo with a microscope attributed to John Marshall as the maker in the front and a microscope made by Giuseppe Campani in the back.

A tiny slice of a dandelion stem under on a petri dish under the lens.

Magnified view of the dandelion stem slice when it was hydrated, showing vibrant greens in coloration.

Magnified view of the dandelion stem slice when it was almost dried, becoming more shriveled in form and brown in coloration.

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Reposted by Jessie Wei-Hsuan Chen

flannerm.bsky.social @flannerm.bsky.social · Jun 19

Post from Herbarium World on #coffee and #Planthumanities herbariumworld.wordpress.com/2025/06/16/c... @dumbartonoaks.bsky.social‬

Coffee in Washington, DC

Engraving of Coffea arabica by John Miller, 1774. Wellcome Collection. As I mentioned in the last post, I spent a day in March at Dumbarton Oaks Museum and Library and met with several people inter…

herbariumworld.wordpress.com

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Jessie Wei-Hsuan Chen @jessiewhchen.bsky.social · Jun 18

Thank you, Bryony!

Jessie Wei-Hsuan Chen @jessiewhchen.bsky.social · Jun 18

Last highlight was a lunch talk at the uni. Herbaria to share my current research. So happy to see many interested people; the room was pretty packed. Got a bonus tour to more items at the Herbaria afterwards, including some stunning wax fruit from early 20th-c Japan from economic botany collection!

A box of fifteen wax apples of various sizes and colors.

Jessie Wei-Hsuan Chen @jessiewhchen.bsky.social · Jun 18

Another major event was studying the famous Blaschka glass flowers on site. It was amazing to examine these incredible models in person, together with the collection manager & conservator. I also got to spend some time in the archive consulting some historical documents on the glass flowers.

Display cases in the glass flower room at the Harvard Museum of Natural History.

Glass model of the Encelia californica (California Brittlebush).

Glass model of the development of Marchantia polymorpha, a kind of liverwort.

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Jessie Wei-Hsuan Chen @jessiewhchen.bsky.social · Jun 18

Students then tried their hands at woodcutting in the 16th-c. manner. Several students liked the technique so much that they returned for more woodcutting the following week during their free experiment times!

Work stations for sixteenth-century woodcutting experiments.

22 inked woodblocks carrying various letters from the alphabet and other images.

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Jessie Wei-Hsuan Chen @jessiewhchen.bsky.social · Jun 18

I visited Harvard Uni. the past two weeks. A major event was giving a workshop for the Summer Institute for Technical Studies in Art @ Art Museums. For the theme Experiment, I showed how I incorporate historical reconstruction/hands-on research in my past/present projects & the related experiments.

A slide showing, on the top half, a photo of an arrangement of art materials and images made in several mediums, and, on the bottom half, the title of the presentation, "Experimenting with Historical Reconstruction".

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