Established by Rachel & James de Candole in 2018, the Transylvania school of botanic art & illustration in Romania is a family-run residential school dedicated to the observation, illustration and conservation of the flora of Transylvania.  

The school sits in the grounds of the family's home in Copşa Mare, a small village surrounded by  meadows, wood pasture and tens of thousands of hectares of oak, beech, maple, walnut, hawthorn & hornbeam. 

The de Candole family is a founding subscriber to the exceptionally rare Transylvania Florilegium,
a collection of botanical paintings of the region's wild flowers drawn for HM King Charles III.  

James de Candole is a direct descendant of Jean-Jacques Vully whose children added 'de Candole' to their surname in the early nineteenth century. We have no proof of kinship with the botanical dynasty founded by Augustin-Pyramus de Candolle, but thanks to research by Dr Carol Carmichael, we can plausibly claim that the three drawings in de Candolle's remarkable Flore des Dames de Genève attributed to a 'Mlle Vully' were made by Anne Vully, older sister of James's fourth great grandfather Jean-Jacques. This suggests that Anne worked directly with A-P de Candolle and may have even been taught by him - an intriguing possibility given our work. 

If you would like to read more about the women who worked with A-P de Candolle on the Flore des Dames, here is a good place to start. Mlle Vully's three copy drawings are now held at the Hunt Institute of Botanical Documentation and can be seen here. The original drawings  - The Torner Collection of Sessé and Mociño Biological Illustrations - are held here.

Here is Margaret Best on the school. And here is an interview with James de Candole in the Spring 2025 newsletter of the Belgian Society of Botanical Artists

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