Natural Curiosity: Unseen Art of the First Fleet

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.
256 pages : colour illustrations, portraits ; 29 cm #141221
First Fleet, 1787-1788 — Pictorial works — Early works to 1800. | Birds — Australia — Pictorial works — Early works to 1800. | Plants — Australia — Pictorial works — Early works to 1800. | Animals — Australia — Pictorial works — Early works to 1800. | Art – Non-Indigenous. | Animals – Birds. | Plants. | Fishing – Fish hooks. | Settlement and contacts – First Fleet, 1788. | Colonisation. | Hunting, gathering and fishing – Tree climbing. | Race relations. | Fishing – Spearfishing. | Settlement and contacts – 18th Century. | Art – Painting – Watercolour. | Australia — In art. | Australia — Colonization — Pictorial works — Early works to 1800. | Australia — Pictorial works — Early works to 1800. | Australia — Discovery and exploration — Pictorial works — Early works to 1800. | Port Jackson (Sydney SI56-05) | New Norfolk (SE Tas SK55-08) | Botany Bay (S Sydney NSW SI56-05) | Norfolk Island. | Australian