#merrell holberton

[archivist-dragonfly]

Book 538

John Abbot: Birds, Butterflies and Other Wonders (Art of Nature)

Pamela Gilbert

Merrell Holberton / The Natural History Museum, London 1998

In July 1773, John Abbot (1751—c. 1840), a twenty-year-old amateur naturalist, left England to spend the rest of his life in Virginia and Georgia to collect and paint specimens for clients in England and Europe. For nearly sixty years, until his death around 1840, he worked meticulously to catalog, paint, and supply specimens for collectors and other naturalists. Though his work was prolific and in demand throughout his life, he never sought greater recognition and virtually never published, as opposed to his contemporary John James Audubon, despite having painted and catalogued many bird specimens well before Audubon began work. Besides being a talented artist, particularly of insects, Abbot was also a gifted scientist and naturalist. Many of the specimens he painted were extinct within forty years of his death, a consequence he predicted following the increase in human population and changes in farming practices.

[archivist-dragonfly]

Book 539

Arthur Harry Church: The Anatomy of Flowers (Art of Nature)

David Mabberley

Merrell Holberton / The Natural History Museum, London 2000

Scientist and naturalist Arthur Harry Church (1865-1937) was something of a contradiction. Entrenched in the Department of Botany at Oxford, Church was known to be the most knowledgeable, yet least traveled, botanist in Britain—an academic recluse who buried himself within his fascination and analysis of plants and flowers. However, his clinical and exacting nature belies the absolutely revolutionary work he produced. His botanical paintings, with specimens often shown in cross-section, are fresh, bold, striking, beautifully composed, and highly modernist in concept despite Church’s insistence that any artistic merit was a mere by-product of the science. So under appreciated is Church’s work that many of the paintings in this book were unpublished during his life and published here for the first time.

[archivist-dragonfly]

Book 537

Sarah Stone: Natural Curiosities from the New Worlds (Art of Nature)

Christine E. Jackson

Merrell Holberton / The Natural History Museum, London 1998

The next few books are a part of a series called Art of Nature. The series, a co-publishing venture between Merrell Holberton and the Natural History Museum of London, sought to shine a spotlight on the notable but lesser known pioneers in the realm of scientific illustration and discovery in the Museum’s archives. When first announced, the series proposed about 10 or so volumes, but as far as I can tell, only about half of those were actually published.

Sarah Stone (c. 1760-1844), beginning around 1777, was employed by entrepreneur Sir Ashton Lever to record the contents of his private museum, which consisted of specimens and ethnographic material being brought back by British expeditions around the world. The Lever Museum, while little known, was a major cultural institution in 18th century London, and when it was dispersed in 1806, Stone’s watercolors became an important record of the museum’s collection. Stone, a talented and meticulous artist, was particularly good with birds and preferred to paint objects (fossils, shells, coral, etc.) like still lifes—set against a plain white tabletop with shadows—that are incredibly realistic and modern looking.