Credit: ©The Royal Society
Image number: RS.10984
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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): 537mm
width (painting): 377mm
width (painting): 377mm
Subject
Content object
Description
Botanical study of Aloe africana, folio in summitate triangulari, margaritifera flore subviridi [modern taxonomy Haworthia pumila], native to South Africa. The composite study shows a section of the stalk and flower, adjacent to the stalk and leaves of the succulent plant, with further detail of one flower and a stamen falling from the plant.
Inscribed in ink beneath the image with the name of the specimen 'Aloe africana, folio in summitate triangulari, margaritifera flore subviridi’ in Ehret’s handwriting, and in the bottom right hand corner with the signature of the artist ‘G.D. Ehret pinx’.
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, folio in summitate triangulari, margaritifera flore subviridi’ in Ehret’s handwriting, and in the bottom right hand corner with the signature of the artist ‘G.D. Ehret pinx’.
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