A fine miniature of Dr. James Anderson (d. 1809), facing left in aubergine-brown coat with gold buttons, white waistcoat and pleated cravat, receding curly brown hair

Dr. James Anderson, botanist and physician and Physician General for the East India Company at Madras. He was Assistant Surgeon in 1765, Surgeon in 1786 and a member of the Medical Board in 1800. He was responsible for attempts to introduce the cultivation of silk to Madras, together with other commercial plants such as the coffee plant, sugar cane, American cotton and the European apple. He corresponded with Sir Joseph Bankes on an insect resembling the cochineal which he had discovered in Madras and was the author of several treatises on Indian diseases and on Indian plant life.

An unsigned watercolour on card version of this miniature was formerly in the collections of Jeffery Whitehead and John Pierpont Morgan, sold Christie's, London, 24-27 June 1935, lot 444 and illustrated in G. C. Williamson, Catalogue of the Collection of Miniatures, The Property of J. Pierpont Morgan, II, London, 1907, no. 233, p. 33, pl. LXXV.