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Parrots and lorikeets swoop down, vivid, bright and colourful. Black swans glide through the air. Owls stare out from pages, wide-eyed. A sense of awe swept through natural history circles in eighteenth-century London when the first ships returned from Sydney with their cargo of exotic animals, birds and plants – and striking watercolour illustrations. The sudden emergence, in 2011, of a large number of these watercolour illustrations has revealed much about the early years of the colony. In Natural Curiosity, Louise Anemaat uncovers never-before-published works from the artists of the First Fleet, including convicts-turned-watercolourists Thomas Watling and John Doody, and the anonymous 'Port Jackson Painter'. She unravels the complex network of natural history collectors who spanned the globe – eagerly acquiring, copying and exchanging these artworks – from New South Wales Surgeon-General John White to passionate British collector Aylmer Bourke Lambert.
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
There are over 7,000 botanical illustrations in the collections of the National Museums & Galleries of Wales, now comprehensively catalogued for the first time
This beautiful book surveys the evolution of botanical illustration from the crude scratchings of paleolithic man down to the highly scientific work of the 20th-century. 186 magnificent examples, over 30 in full color.
Quick and reliable to grow for summer colour, and well marketed, most gardeners will have at least one pelargonium in their garden or conservatory, without realising either the number or variety of species available, nor the plant's extraordinary history. The Passion for Pelargoniums reveals the fascinating and dramatic tales of those who have been involved in finding, classifying, collecting and breeding the plants. It explodes the myth that all modern versions of the plant are descended from the oldest known variety - the seventeenth-century drab-coloured P. triste, literally translated as the sad pelargonium, and reveals that 2,000 hybrids have been developed from less than a dozen plants...
From wedding bouquets to funeral wreaths, carnations can be seen everywhere in human culture. Their colorful but delicately folded petals have made them one of the foremost decorative flowers, from the gardens of the Ottoman Empire to American Mothers Day bouquets, via Chinese medicines and French Empresses. In this book, Twigs Way explores the extraordinary history of this inimitable flower. The author traces the trials and tribulations of early breeders—compelled by florists’ fascinations for the striped and spotted—which led to delightfully colored (and delightfully named) varieties such as Lustie Gallant and Bleeding Swain. She looks at the symbolism of the red and white—and even...
Visual anatomy books have been a staple of medical practice and study since the mid-sixteenth century. But the visual representation of diseased states followed a very different pattern from anatomy, one we are only now beginning to investigate and understand. With Visualizing Disease, Domenico Bertoloni Meli explores key questions in this domain, opening a new field of inquiry based on the analysis of a rich body of arresting and intellectually challenging images reproduced here both in black and white and in color. Starting in the Renaissance, Bertoloni Meli delves into the wide range of figures involved in the early study and representation of disease, including not just men of medicine, ...
This book examines how the Embassy members approached, selected, and represented information, and how, in doing so, they helped to shape European perceptions of China. The Macartney Embassy of 1793 was the first British diplomatic mission to China, seeking to open ties between the two empires. As part of the mission, the British government commissioned writers and artists to chronicle the geography and culture of a civilization that had, until then, been shrouded in mystery. A central focus of the book is the artwork itself, which provides a window into the diplomatic, artistic and scientific viewpoints underlying the mission. Drawing on archival research, the study recreates the processes t...