Credit: © The Royal Society
Image number: RS.10526
Looking for a special gift? Buy a print of this image.
‘The Common Musk’
Date
1791
Creator
George Noble (British) , Engraver
After
Charles Reuben Ryley (1747 - 1798, British) , Painter
Object type
Library reference
R63366
Material
Technique
Dimensions
height (print): 280mm
width (print): 216mm
width (print): 216mm
Subject
Content object
Description
Zoological study of the Siberian musk deer (Moschus moschiferus) native to Asia, including Russia, Mongolia and China. This is a male animal, displaying the distinctive long upper teeth.
Plate 3 from Museum Leverianum containing select specimens from the museum of the late Sir Ashton Lever...by George Shaw (published by James Parkinson, 1792).
The accompanying text states that: “The Musk is an Asiatic animal, and is principally found amongst the mountainous parts of Thibet, where it wanders amidst the highest and coldest tracts...It is said to be not gregarious, but rather a solitary animal...that celebrated perfume...is well known to be a secretion of a peculiar nature, formed in a particular cyst or receptacle, situated under the lower [part of the animal’s belly...”
The plate is inscribed: “C.R.Ryley del. Noble sculpt. MOSCHUS MOSCHIFERUS. THE COMMON MUSK. Publish’d Feb. 8th 1791 by J.Parkinson Leverian Museum, London.”
Plate 3 from Museum Leverianum containing select specimens from the museum of the late Sir Ashton Lever...by George Shaw (published by James Parkinson, 1792).
The accompanying text states that: “The Musk is an Asiatic animal, and is principally found amongst the mountainous parts of Thibet, where it wanders amidst the highest and coldest tracts...It is said to be not gregarious, but rather a solitary animal...that celebrated perfume...is well known to be a secretion of a peculiar nature, formed in a particular cyst or receptacle, situated under the lower [part of the animal’s belly...”
The plate is inscribed: “C.R.Ryley del. Noble sculpt. MOSCHUS MOSCHIFERUS. THE COMMON MUSK. Publish’d Feb. 8th 1791 by J.Parkinson Leverian Museum, London.”
Object history
The natural historian George Shaw (1751-1813) was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1789. His book, from which this plate is taken, was an account of the collection built up by Sir Ashton Lever FRS (1729-1788). The museum was originally at Leicester House, London and was displayed publically after Lever’s death, moving to a rotunda building near Blackfriars Bridge.
Associated place