The discovery of the photographic process in the nineteenth century revolutionized the sciences as well as the creative arts. Natural-history illustrators were among the first to experiment with ‘drawing with light’, yet this brief movement, centred on a group of mostly English and Scottish artists, has faded from conscious memory.

Anna Atkins' 1853 Cyanotypes of British and Foreign Flowering Plants and Ferns was the first printed book to include photographs and text. Atkins created her cyanotypes, such as the alga Laminaria digitata illustrated here, by laying specimens directly on to light-sensitive paper.

Atkins' work on seaweed species features prominently in the exhibition Ocean Flowers: Impressions from Nature in the Victorian Era, which can be seen at the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, Connecticut, until 8 August. This is a rare chance to see a visual history of Victorian botanical illustration.

A book to accompany the exhibition, Ocean Flowers, edited by Carol Armstrong and Catherine de Zegher, is published by Princeton University Press ($49.95, £32.95).

Alison Abbott