Credit: ©The Royal Society
Image number: RS.10993
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'Melocactus americana minor Boerh'
Date
[c.1735]
Creator
Georg Dionysius Ehret (1708 - 1770, German)
Object type
Archive reference number
Material
Dimensions
height (drawing (framed)): 710mm
width (drawing (framed)): 532mm
width (drawing (framed)): 532mm
Subject
Content object
Description
Botanical study of Melocactus americana minor Boerh. The study shows the cylindrical cactus growing in a terracotta container with a ring of pink seed pods towards its apex, with further detail of two seed pods by the container, one of which is shown in two halves.
Inscribed in ink beneath the image with the name of the specimen ‘Melocactus americana minor Boerh’, and in the right hand corner with the signature of the artist ‘G. D. Ehret f. [fecit]'.
Georg Dionysius Ehret was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1757.
Inscribed in ink beneath the image with the name of the specimen ‘Melocactus americana minor Boerh’, and in the right hand corner with the signature of the artist ‘G. D. Ehret f. [fecit]'.
Georg Dionysius Ehret was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1757.
Object history
Part of a collection of 35 botanical paintings by Georg Dionysius Ehret and Jacobus van Huysum, primarily of Aloes, depicting specimens from the yearly collection sent by the Society of Apothecaries Physic Garden at Chelsea to the Royal Society. This means of capturing the specimens was initially proposed by Taylor White who presented a collection of watercolours by van Huysum in 1734. Philip Miller (1691 – 1771), Gardener to the Society of Apothecaries and Fellow of the Royal Society, was asked by the Council to select the plants to be preserved in this way in 1734, and references to this commission occur in the Society records up to 1737.
Associated place