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Banks' Florilegium. Xanthorrhoea Resinosa, plate 334

Artist Sydney Parkinson (c 1745 - 1771)

Publisher Alecto Historical Editions

Date1984

Object number00000961

NameEngraving

MediumInk on paper

DimensionsOverall: 465 x 290 mm

ClassificationsArt

Credit LineANMM Collection

Terms

DescriptionA coloured engraving from 'Banks' Florilegium' titled 'Plate 334, Xanthorrhoea Resinosa. Persoon subsp. Resinosa. Acoroides resinifera. Endeavour River, Australia 17 June - 4 August 1770'. Edition number 100/100 of the 1984 reprint from the British Museum using the orginal copper plates. The plant's common name is known as one of the Grass Trees.HistoryJoseph Banks - naturalist, patron of science and 'gentleman of large fortune' - accompanied Cook on his first Pacific voyage, subsidising the expedition to the tune of £10, 000 (millions of dollars in today's values). Banks funded the employment of Parkinson, naturalist Daniel Solander, landscape artist Alexander Buchan, secretary and artist Herman Sporing, and four field assistants. When the ENDEAVOUR returned with abundant new species of plants and animals, it excited the scientific community and fired the public imagination. During his time with the expedition Parkinson completed some 1,300 sketches and watercolours of botanical specimens and landscape views, and compiled vocabularies of the peoples of Tahiti and New Zealand. Born in Scotland in 1745, the young Parkinson was apprenticed to a wool draper, but in his spare time learnt the specialised art of botanical drawing. In 1766 he moved to London to pursue his natural history studies, where Joseph Banks offered him a job at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew and then invited him to join Cook's expedition. During the first part of the voyage, Parkinson sketched and completed watercolours of botanical specimens. But after Alexander Buchan died of epileptic fit in Tahiti in 1769, Parkinson had to perform Buchan's duties as well. and he soon fell behind, completing only annotated sketches. He also had to work quickly before specimens dried out and lost their colour or shape - and, in some cases, before insects ate the specimens and paints as he worked! Parkinson intended to complete the water colours when he returned to England, but on the homeward voyage he contracted dysentery and died on 26 January 1771 aged just 26. Parkinson's brother Stanfield later fought acrimoniously with Bank's over his brother’s personal effects, papers and drawings; as a result, Banks took out an injunction to stop Stanfield publishing before the official account by John Hawkesworth was released. In an act more reminiscent of a soap opera, Stanfield had his brother's papers transcribed (against his agreement with Banks) and published in 'A Journal of a Voyage to the South Seas' in 1773, the same year as the official version. Joseph Banks became a leading light in the natural history field, and was influential in the British Government's decision to colonise New South Wales He corresponded with Pacific-bound missionaries, funded 'gentlemen' collectors and naval expeditions, and was president of the Royal Society from 1778 until his death in 1820. Between 1772 and 1784 Banks employed five artists to complete Parkinson's watercolours, and 18 engravers to cut copper printing plates, with a view to publishing the works in full colour. But the publication never eventuated, and the original watercolours, along with specimens, were deposited in what was to become London's Natural History Museum. For more than a century the works remained unpublished until "Illustrations of Australian Plants" (1900) and "Captain Cook's Florilegium" (1973) were released, both in monochrome. It seemed that Parkinson's work would never be reproduced in its full beauty. Fortunately, between 1980 and 1990, Alecto Historical Editions, in partnership with the Natural History Museum, published his works in 35 parts, compromising 743 botanical drawings, 337 of which feature Australian plants. The collection, known as Bank's Florilegium, records the plants collected by Banks and Solander in Madeira, Brazil, Tierra del Fuego, the Society Islands, New Zealand, eastern Australia and Java. These modern engravings have been produced from the watercolours completed by Bank's artists and the original plates commissioned by Banks himself. Only 100 numbered sets of the Florilegium were published, and a complete set of the Australian part is held by the museum. SignificanceThese historic plates, bequeathed by Sir Joseph Banks to the British Museum, are exceptionally fine examples of the engraver's art and depict some of the first plants to engage the scientific attention of European voyagers in the Pacific Ocean, including the very first plants of New Zealand and Eastern Australia ever to be gathered and studied by Europeans.