DOUBLE COCONUT, 1936
Watercolour on silk. 24½ x 17½in. (62.2 x 44.5 cm.)
Provenance
Untraced.
Exhibited
London, Fine Art Society, 1936, No. 22.
London, London Gallery 1939, No. 4.
Literature
Ratcliffe (2007) illus. b/w, pl. 38.
The fruit of the Coco de Mer palm resembles a pair of coconuts joined together. They are the largest fruits of the vegetable kingdom. Male and female flowers grow on separate trees. The trees grow wild on only two islands in the Seychelles group. For several centuries the tree was known only by its fruits as flotsam washed ashore, giving rise to the belief that the parent tree must grow underwater. The sexually suggestive appearance of the nuts, which can be read as both male and female forms, and its mysterious origins, would have made the plant of interest to Colquhoun.
Reference
Ratcliffe, E. Ithell Colquhoun. Mandrake, Oxford. 2007.