Margaret Ursula Mee Paintings & Artwork for Sale | Margaret Ursula Mee Art Value Price Guide

Mar. 04, 2025
Margaret Mee (British 1909-1988), Quesnelia Marmorata Parati Rio, Watercolor on Paper, Frame: 30 x 24 in. (76.2 x 61 cm.)
Est: $30 - $50
Margaret Mee (British 1909-1988), Quesnelia Marmorata Parati Rio, Watercolor on Paper,
Weschler's
Apr. 06, 2019
Mee Watercolor, Orchid (Catasetum)
Est: $5,000 - $10,000
Mee, Margaret (1909-1988). Catasetum pileatum. Watercolor on paper. Brazil, c. 1964. Cultivated in Sao Paolo, procured in Alto Rico Negro. 26" x 19" sheet, 37" x 30 1/2" framed. Unlike Amazon botanical artists before her, Margaret worked entirely from living plants. Her fifteen expeditions into the interior, mostly to Amazonia, involved travelling and living under the most primitive conditions. She would draw at night by torchlight to capture rare nocturnal flowers, and this immediacy gave her paintings an accuracy, depth, and colour unrivalled by her predecessors. Her travels coincided with the beginning of the commercial exploitation of the forest, and she expressed her fury at the damage caused to the land and its peoples" (DNB). Mee's magnificent botanical paintings, most based on specimens collected during her own expeditions, includes several illustrations and descriptions of plants either recently discovered (one by Mee herself) or never previously illustrated, as explained in the preface by Sir George Taylor, Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, who compares Mee's paintings favorably to the work of her predecessor C.F. P. von Martius, author of the Flora brasiliensis (1840-1906). 17 plant families are represented, with each section introduced by one of 10 different botanist contributors.
Arader Galleries
Apr. 06, 2019
Mee Watercolor, Bromeliad
Est: $7,000 - $12,000
Mee, Margaret (1909-1988). Bromeliad Aechmea tocantina / Mato Grosso / Rio Alto Juruena: July-August, 1962. Watercolor , gouache and graphite on paper. Brazil, c. 1962. 25 1/2" x 18 3/4" sheet, 31" x 24" framed. Unlike Amazon botanical artists before her, Margaret worked entirely from living plants. Her fifteen expeditions into the interior, mostly to Amazonia, involved travelling and living under the most primitive conditions. She would draw at night by torchlight to capture rare nocturnal flowers, and this immediacy gave her paintings an accuracy, depth, and colour unrivalled by her predecessors. Her travels coincided with the beginning of the commercial exploitation of the forest, and she expressed her fury at the damage caused to the land and its peoples" (DNB). Mee's magnificent botanical paintings, most based on specimens collected during her own expeditions, includes several illustrations and descriptions of plants either recently discovered (one by Mee herself) or never previously illustrated, as explained in the preface by Sir George Taylor, Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, who compares Mee's paintings favorably to the work of her predecessor C.F. P. von Martius, author of the Flora brasiliensis (1840-1906). 17 plant families are represented, with each section introduced by one of 10 different botanist contributors.
Arader Galleries
Sep. 25, 2018
MEE, MARGARET. 1909-1988. Three large folio illustrated works on flowers
Est: $2,000 - $3,000
MEE, MARGARET. 1909-1988. Three large folio illustrated works on flowers of Brazil and the Amazon, comprising: 1. Flowers of the Brazilian Forests. London: The Tyron Gallery, 1968. Folio. Publisher’s green half morocco gilt and marbled boards, green cloth slipcase. Limited edition, no. 186 of 506. Wear and minor staining to slipcase. 2. Flowers of the Amazon. Rio de Janeiro: Record, 1980. Folio. Text in Portuguese and English. Publisher’s green cloth gilt, matching slipcase. Limited edition, no. 780 of 1,000. Wear to slipcase. 3. Brazilian Bromeliads. São Paulo: privately printed for SLP Engineering, 1992. Portfolio of 8 loose plates, text leaf with portrait photograph and eulogy for Mee. Green cloth portfolio, blind-stamped titles on top cover, green paper internal chemise. Limited edition, no. 229 of 500. Light wear to portfolio case, some ink transfer from chemise to text leaf. Margaret Mee was an English botanical artist and conservationist. She moved to Brazil in her 40s and began exploring the Amazon with her husband, making drawings and paintings of the plants and flowers she found there. In more than 30 years of painting the flora of the Amazon, she discovered and recorded several new species. She and her husband returned to England in 1988, where the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew was hosting an exhibit of her work. Tragically, she was killed in a car accident that year.
Bonhams
Jul. 28, 2018
Mee Watercolor, Bromeliad
Est: $4,000 - $6,000
MEE, Margaret (1909-1988). Vrisea erythrodactylon (Bromeliad). Gouache over pencil and paper. Inscribed with location "Estacao Biologico Paranapicaba" and date "Oct[ober]. 1960". Numbered "2 26 26", and further inscribed on the verso in another hand: "L 13 no 8 (2) see st. 1". 11 7/8 x 8 1/2 inches sheet. Provenance: Margaret Mee Reproduced: R. L. A. Stiff Margaret Mee. Return to the Amazon (London: 1996), p. 164 (detail). Margaret Mee first visited Brazil in 1952 in order to care for her sister Catherine, who was ill. She soon settled there with her husband Greville Mee and it was a few years later that she made her first expedition up the Amazon. Over the next 32 years she made a number of further trips up the Amazon and in coastal areas of Brazil, some of them lasting for four months. During these years, she continued to paint and draw what she saw and kept diaries of her travels, later published. In 1988, shortly after completing another Amazon trip, Mee came to England to lecture to the Royal Geographic Society and to attend the opening of an exhibition of her paintings at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. During this visit, she was tragically killed in a car crash. A field sketch of a Vriesea erythrodactylon, executed in the year that Mee won the Royal Horticultural Societys Grenfell Medal for her botanical paintings. For Mees painting of a Vriesea erythrodactylon held by the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institute, Washington DC, see Reproduced: R.L.A. Stiff Margaret Mee. Return to the Amazon (London: 1998), p. 165 and M. Mee Margaret Mees Amazon (Woodbridge and Kew: 2004), p. 310.
Arader Galleries
Jul. 28, 2018
Mee Watercolor, Airplant
Est: $5,000 - $8,000
MEE, Margaret (1909-1988). Guzmania monostchia (West Indian tufted airplant). Gouache over pencil and paper. Signed "Margarat Mee" and inscribed with title. C. 1968. Watermarked "Raffaello Fabriano". 8 3/4 x 11 1/2 inches sheet, 19 x 23 inches framed. Margaret Mee first visited Brazil in 1952 in order to care for her sister Catherine, who was ill. She soon settled there with her husband Greville Mee and it was a few years later that she made her first expedition up the Amazon. Over the next 32 years she made a number of further trips up the Amazon and in coastal areas of Brazil, some of them lasting for four months. During these years, she continued to paint and draw what she saw and kept diaries of her travels, later published. In 1988, shortly after completing another Amazon trip, Mee came to England to lecture to the Royal Geographic Society and to attend the opening of an exhibition of her paintings at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. During this visit, she was tragically killed in a car crash. A fine, finished painting by Mee of Guzmania monostachia (commonly known as the West Indian Tufted Airplant), which is an epiphytic bromeliad found in Brazil, the West Indies, and Florida (where it is threatened with extinction and considered endangered), and elsewhere. This gouache was included in one of the hundred signed and specifically bound copies of Mees first book, Flowers of the Brazilian Forest (London: 1968; cf. item 1) as the frontispiece, and was then removed from the volume to be exhibited separately.
Arader Galleries
Jul. 28, 2018
Mee Watercolor, Orchid
Est: $5,000 - $8,000
MEE, Margaret (1909-1988). Catasetum Saccatum (Sack-shaped catasetum, Orchid). Gouache over pencil and paper. Watermarked: "CM Fabriano / 11/11 cotone". 12 7/8 x 9 1/2 inches sheet. Provenance: Margaret Mee. Margaret Mee first visited Brazil in 1952 in order to care for her sister Catherine, who was ill. She soon settled there with her husband Greville Mee and it was a few years later that she made her first expedition up the Amazon. Over the next 32 years she made a number of further trips up the Amazon and in coastal areas of Brazil, some of them lasting for four months. During these years, she continued to paint and draw what she saw and kept diaries of her travels, later published. In 1988, shortly after completing another Amazon trip, Mee came to England to lecture to the Royal Geographic Society and to attend the opening of an exhibition of her paintings at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. During this visit, she was tragically killed in a car crash. This sketch is possibly connected to a sketch in Mees notebook of 1962-1965 of a Catasetum saccatum collected in the Mato Grosso (cf. S. de Botton Brautigam, ed. Margaret Mee (Rio de Janeiro: 2006) pp. 252 and 356) and the frontispiece painting of a Catasetum saccatum in her Flowers of the Brazilian Forest (London: 1968), which is dated August 1963 and depicts a specimen collected on the Rio Alto Juruena in the northern Mato Grosso, during her second expedition of 1962. In her notes accompanying a later painting of a Catasetum saccatum, Mee describes it thus: the masculine flowers of this strangely beautiful plant are completely different from the female flowers, imitating dark bats with outspread wings. The long pendent stem supported more than fifteen blooms. The modest female flowers resemble the green hoods of elfins, growing on an erect stem. Both forms grow on the same plant and even from the same pseudo-bulb. Until Charles Darwin pronounced them to be the same species, they were considered to be different plants. (Flores do Amazonas. Flowers of the Amazon (Sao Cristovao, Rio de Janeiro: 1980), no.16).
Arader Galleries
Dec. 29, 2017
Margaret Mee (1909-1988), 3 x Kew gardens ltd edition coloured prints Battl
Est: £40 - £60
Margaret Mee (1909-1988), 3 x Kew gardens ltd edition coloured prints Battleya violacea Rio coulini , Amazonas . 1981 Phryganocydia corymbosa....1984 Memora schombergia ''De Bandolle Meirs '1984 Each signed , dated and bearing blind stamp. Images approximately 26 x 19''
Claydon Auctioneers
May. 05, 2017
Margaret Mee (20th Century) A GROUP OF FOUR PRINTS, study of plants. 50 cm x 36 cm.
Est: £30 - £50
Margaret Mee (20th Century) A GROUP OF FOUR PRINTS, study of plants. 50 cm x 36 cm.
Hannam's Auctioneers
Nov. 20, 2016
MARGARET MEE (UK, 1909-1988) - "Gustava Pulchea Amazonas", a print from the original watercolor, sold to benefit the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, in a gold Arts & Crafts style frame, floated within a mat, OS: 35" x 2...
Est: $500 - $700
MARGARET MEE (UK, 1909-1988) - "Gustava Pulchea Amazonas", a print from the original watercolor, sold to benefit the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, in a gold Arts & Crafts style frame, floated within a mat, OS: 35" x 27 1/2", SS: 25 1/2" x 18 3/4". Fine condition.
Thomaston Place Auction Galleries
Nov. 20, 2016
MARGARET MEE (UK, 1909-1988) - "Gustava Augusta Amazonas", Nov 1987, a print from the original watercolor, sold to benefit the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew, in a green and gold frame, floated within a mat, OS: 40" x...
Est: $500 - $700
MARGARET MEE (UK, 1909-1988) - "Gustava Augusta Amazonas", Nov 1987, a print from the original watercolor, sold to benefit the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew, in a green and gold frame, floated within a mat, OS: 40" x 31". Fine condition.
Thomaston Place Auction Galleries
Jan. 02, 2016
After Mee, "Brazilian Bromelaids" Portfolio
Est: $300 - $500
After Margaret Ursula Mee, MBE (British, 1909-1988), "Brazilian Bromelaids"-1992, first edition, published by SLP Engineering Ltd., San Paulo, Brazil, limited edition of 500 copies--this 354/500. Elephant folio containing 8 color lithographs on "couche" paper produced by Cia. Suzano de Papel e Celulose after Mee's watercolors depicting botanicals with notations by Mee with printed black text pertaining to image on verso. Two additional sheets in portfolio comprising of one with information on portfolio group, the other with biographic information on Mee. Each sheet measures approximately 24.4" x 18.1".
Ahlers & Ogletree Inc.
Jul. 25, 2014
MARGARET MEE. (British, 1909-1988). PYMPHAEA RUDGEANA, pencil signed reproduction print. Accompanied by a book, "Flowers of the Amazon
Est: $200 - $300
MARGARET MEE. (British, 1909-1988). PYMPHAEA RUDGEANA, pencil signed reproduction print. Accompanied by a book, "Flowers of the Amazon Forests, The Botanical Art of Margaret Mee." - Framed, sight: 24 1/2 in. x 17 1/2 in.
Sloans & Kenyon
Apr. 07, 2004
MEE, Margaret Ursula (1909-1988, illustrator). Flowers of the Brazilian forests collected and
Est: £3,000 - £5,000
MEE, Margaret Ursula (1909-1988, illustrator). Flowers of the Brazilian forests collected and painted by Margaret Mee foreword on the Brazilian forests by Roberto Burle Marx with a preface by Sir George Taylor. London: Tryon Gallery in association with George Rainbird, 1968. 2° (530 x 390mm). Title in green and black, 5 maps printed in red and black on two facing pages, ORIGINAL PENCIL AND WATERCOLOUR DRAWING (sheet size: 330 x 240mm.) SIGNED AND IDENTIFIED IN PENCIL BY MEE, tipped onto thin grey card leaf bound before the half-title (as called for), 32 coloured plates, uncoloured vignette illustrations, all after Mee. Original vellum gilt, t.e.g., green cloth slip-case. A FINE COPY, LIMITED TO 506 COPIES SIGNED BY THE ARTIST, THIS NUMBER 8 OF 100 COPIES CONTAINING AN ORIGINAL WATERCOLOUR BY MEE AND BOUND IN VELLUM. In 'terms of artistic skill and scientific accuracy this British artist... can bear comparison with the very greatest artists of the genre, including Ehret and Redouté.' (Oak Spring Flora p.409). Margaret Mee and her husband moved to Brazil in 1952, and between 1956 and 1988 she made a series of exploratory trips into the Amazon, sketching and drawing the magnificent range of plant life in its natural setting. Her corpus of work has become particularly valuable as it now contains accurate representations of a number of plants that have subsequently become very rare. 'I have no doubt that Margaret Mee's work... will go down in the history of botany as that of one of the few artists who understood the meaning of plant life in relation to the beauty of the living.' (Roberto Burle Marx, 'Introduction').
Christie's