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Mark CatesbyCaput Phaenicopteri & Keratophyton (Flamingo Head with Coral)1731-43
1731-43
About the Item
MARK CATESBY. (1682(83)-1749).
The Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands.
Drawn by Mark Catesby and G.D. Ehret.
Etched by MarkCatesby.
Original Hand-Coloring.
London, 1731-45.
In 1712, Mark Catesby came into a small inheritance, which enabled him to fulfill a long-standing dream and book passage to America. His sister was married to the Secretary to the Governor of Virginia, and was able to provide him with introductions to the leading men of the Colonies. During the next seven years, he traveled extensively to collect and record the flora and fauna of the New World. Many of the specimens were sent to England; soon they found their way into gardens in Paris, Leyden and Danzig.
Encouraged by his English friends (including many members of the Royal Society), Catesby returned in 1722 and walked over most of what are now Virginia, Georgia and the Carolinas. In 1725, he extended his research to the Bahamas. The notebooks that he filled with drawings and the packing cases of preserved specimens were the raw material for an unprecedented project: a scientific account of heretofore-unknown wildlife, with illustrations taken from life. The text recorded his personal observations, as well as theories, legends, and folktales gathered over the course of a decade.
Unable to interest sponsors for his massive Natural History, Catesby learned to etch copperplates from Joseph Goupy, a French artist then working in London. Thus, he secured both accuracy and economy. He produced all but two of the plates for his Natural History and either painted the impressions himself or closely supervised the work to insure its fidelity to his models.
Catesby’s Natural History is considered to be one of the great achievements of natural science in the 18th century. “In designing the plants,” he said, “I always did them while fresh and just gathered; and the animals, particularly the birds, I painted while alive (except a very few), and gave them their gestures…I have adapted the birds to those plants on which they fed, or have relation to. Fish, which do not retain their colours when out of their element, I painted at different times, having a succession of them procured while the former lost their colors….”
The Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands became the first book devoted to the natural history of North America. An illustrated nature study of American plants and animals, it has lost none of its power to delight in the 250 years since it was first published. A monument to Catesby’s intelligence and love of nature and even his single-mindedness, it provided ornithologists and scientists, including John James Audubon who followed in Catesby’s footsteps a century later, the model for their own achievements.
Reference: Flower & Fruit Prints. Dunthorne. Da Capo Press. Washington, D.C., 1938.
Mark Catesby’s Natural History of America. McBurney. Houston, 1977.
- Creator:Mark Catesby (1682 - 1749, English)
- Creation Year:1731-43
- Dimensions:Height: 27.5 in (69.85 cm)Width: 23.5 in (59.69 cm)
- Medium:
- Movement & Style:
- Period:
- Condition:Clean, crisp image. Original hand-coloring. Framed to museum specifications using archival matting, backing, hinging. Glazed with ultra-violet filtering Plexiglas.
- Gallery Location:Florham Park, NJ
- Reference Number:
About the Seller
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