Young Blonde Girl With Blue Eyes Reveals Her Dress On The Bench With Artificial Plants Decoration

In more recent times, Italians were the first to acquire celebrity for the skill and taste they displayed in this manufacture. Later English, American, and especially French manufactures were celebrated. The Chinese and Japanese show great dexterity in this work. These early artificial flowers were made out of many-colored ribbons which were twisted together and attached to small pieces of wire. But these first attempts were decidedly crude.
In the first half of the 19th century, the Swedish artist Emma Fürstenhoff became internationally renowned in Europe for her artificial flower arrangements of Wax in a technique regarded as a novelty in contemporary Europe.
In course of time feathers were substituted for ribbons, a more delicate material, but one to which it was not so easy to give the requisite shades of color. The plumage of the birds of South America was adapted for artificial flowers on account of the brilliancy and permanence of the tints, and the natives of that continent long practised with success the making of feather flowers. The London Zoo contains a collection of artificial flowers made out of the feathers of hummingbirds.