Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation

Happy holidays from all of us here at the Hunt Institute. If you're looking for something uncommon this holiday season, then visit the Institute, where our setting and collections reflect our founder Rachel Hunt's appreciation for the special and the unique. Begin in our gallery where Worlds Within features botanical micrographs by British artist Rob Kesseler (1951–) alongside our botanical wall charts. As unique gifts go, our art exhibition catalogues certainly fit the bill, especially Gifts of Winter, which celebrates the season with plant images and poetry. Our cards, created from our collection of artwork and book plates by well-known botanical artists and illustrators, make delightful, cost-effective gifts. If you love wild orchids, we have a selection of 19th-century engravings and lithographs that were produced for a variety of European horticultural publications. Prints are $40 and benefit the Art Department's Anne Ophelia Todd Dowden Art Acquisition Fund. We hope you'll stop by to see Rachel's unique gift to Carnegie Mellon University and maybe find something a little uncommon for yourself.

If you can't visit the Institute for your holiday shopping, you can purchase a selection of images from our collections on different products, such as cards, mugs, sweatshirts and t-shirts, via our online shop at CafePress. In the spirit of the season we're featuring holly by Redouté and Christmas rose by Ehret.

Whether made at the Institute or at CafePress, all proceeds from purchases benefit the Institute's scholarly programs and mission of preserving the history of botany.

We wish you a happy and safe holiday season. Our offices will be closed to the public during winter break from 18 December 2017 until our normal hours resume on 3 January 2018. We're looking forward to seeing you in the new year. For a blast from the past, check out the PDF to the right to see what we were doing in December 1963.