Calcutta School, circa 1800

THE PROPERTY OF A LADY

細節

Calcutta School, circa 1800
Flowering Plants of the Prince of Wales's Island (Penang)
all inscribed and numbered respectively 'No 1/Amomum Filiforme'; 'No 2./Nauclea Gambeer'; 'No .6./Echites? Paniculata.'; 'No 7./Flemingia fragrans.'; 'No 8./Allophyllus racemosus?'; 'No 11./Myrtus tomentosa'; 'No 18./Phyllanthus Agynus'; 'No 19./Rottlera paniculata./Male.'; 'No 20./Rottlera paniculata./Female.'; pencil, pen and ink and watercolour, five on Whatman paper dated 1794, unframed
20 5/8 x 14½in. (524 x 370mm.); and slightly smaller
(9)

出版

Yu-Chee Chong, Exploring the East Indies, 1790-1890, 1987, under nos. 23-32

展覽

London, Yu-Chee Chong, Exploring the East Indies, 1790-1890, March-April 1987, nos. 28, 29 and 32

拍品專文

These drawings depict plants discovered on Prince of Wales's Island (Penang) by Dr William Hunter (1755-1812) and were painted by local artists employed by Dr William Roxburgh, Superintendant of the Calcutta Botanic Gardens 1793-1813; Hunter is known to have sent plant specimens to Roxburgh. Hunter went to India in 1781, became Assistant Surgeon to the East India Company in 1783, and full Surgeon in 1794. In 1811 he was appointed Superintendant Surgeon of Java. In 1802 he visited Penang and on his return produced his Outline of a Flora of Prince of Wales's Island for the Governor-General, the Marquis Wellesley, with twenty-two watercolour illustrations, including the nine in this lot. The drawings are inscribed and numbered in Hunter's own hand. The original manuscript is now in the British Museum but without the watercolours which became separated from the manuscript.

Below we have transcribed extracts from the 1987 catalogue, Yu-Chee Chong (op. cit.), regarding the character of the individual drawings. The numbers quoted refer to those inscribed in Dr. Hunter's hand on each individual drawing.