Credit: © The Royal Society
Image number: RS.10956
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Portraits of Rufina and Maria
Date
ca. 1851
Creator
Richard Spruce (1817 - 1893, British) , Explorer
Object type
Archive reference number
Material
Dimensions
height (drawing): 222mm
width (drawing): 134mm
width (drawing): 134mm
Description
Front facing portraits of two Indian children.
Annotated top left, 'Mamaluka children. At Lages, mouth of Rio Negro'.
Top image annotated 'Maria. 8 years'.
Bottom image annotated 'Rufina (sister of Maria). 3 years'. Rufina wears a beaded necklace.
Reproduced as Figures 11 and 12 in Notes of a botanist on the Amazon & Andes: being records of travel on the Amazon and its tributaries, the Trombetas, Rio Negro, Uaupés, Casiquiari, Pacimoni, Huallaga, and Pastasa; as also to the cataracts of the Orinoco, along the eastern side of the Andes of Peru and Ecuador, and the shores of the Pacific, during the years 1849-1864 edited by Alfred Russel Wallace (volume I, London, 1908).
Annotated top left, 'Mamaluka children. At Lages, mouth of Rio Negro'.
Top image annotated 'Maria. 8 years'.
Bottom image annotated 'Rufina (sister of Maria). 3 years'. Rufina wears a beaded necklace.
Reproduced as Figures 11 and 12 in Notes of a botanist on the Amazon & Andes: being records of travel on the Amazon and its tributaries, the Trombetas, Rio Negro, Uaupés, Casiquiari, Pacimoni, Huallaga, and Pastasa; as also to the cataracts of the Orinoco, along the eastern side of the Andes of Peru and Ecuador, and the shores of the Pacific, during the years 1849-1864 edited by Alfred Russel Wallace (volume I, London, 1908).
Object history
Spruce spent 15 years exploring the Amazon from the Andes to its mouth, collecting plants on behalf of botanists including Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker FRS and George Bentham FRS. He was one of the first Europeans to visit many of the places from which he collected. Spruce was not a Fellow of the Royal Society.
Associated place