Credit: ©The Royal Society
Image number: RS.10972
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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 (painting): 540mm
width (painting): 376mm
width (painting): 376mm
Subject
Content object
Description
Botanical study of Aloe africana, caulescens, foliis glaucis brevissimus foliorum sumitate interna & externa non nihil spinosa [modern taxonomy Aloe brevifolia, also known as the short-leaved aloe], native to South Africa. The composite study shows the stalk, flower, and leaves of the succulent plant, with additional details of one leaf, and three flowers falling from the plant, one closed, one slightly open, and one showing the stamens of the flower.
Inscribed in ink beneath the image with the name of the specimen ‘Aloe africana, caulescens, foliis glaucis brevissimus foliorum sumitate interna & externa non nihil spinosa’ in Ehret’s handwriting, and in the bottom right hand corner 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 glaucis brevissimus foliorum sumitate interna & externa non nihil spinosa’ in Ehret’s handwriting, and in the bottom right hand corner 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