Credit: ©The Royal Society
Image number: RS.10966
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'Aloe africana'
Date
[c.1735]
Creator
Georg Dionysius Ehret (1708 - 1770, German) , Painter
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 Aloe africana, caulescens foliis spinosis, maculis ab utraque parte albicantibus obscurioribus, magis glaucis quam proecedens [modern taxonomy is possibly Aloe saponaria, also known as the Soap Aloe or Zebra Aloe], native to South Africa. The composite study shows the succulent plant in three overlapping sections: the stalk and basal rosette of leaves; the stalk and flower head; and an enlarged single leaf. Also includes detail of two flowers falling from the plant, one revealing the stamens of the flower.
Inscribed in ink beneath the image with the name of the specimen ‘Aloe africana, caulescens foliis spinosis, maculis ab utraque parte albicantibus obscurioribus, magis glaucis quam proecedens’ in Ehret’s handwriting, and in the bottom right hand corner, beneath the image, is the signature of the artist ‘G.D. Ehret 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 ‘Aloe africana, caulescens foliis spinosis, maculis ab utraque parte albicantibus obscurioribus, magis glaucis quam proecedens’ in Ehret’s handwriting, and in the bottom right hand corner, beneath the image, is the signature of the artist ‘G.D. Ehret 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