Credit: ©The Royal Society
Image number: RS.10986
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‘Aloe africana Arachnoidea’
Date
[c.1735]
Creator
Georg Dionysius Ehret (1708 - 1770, German) , Painter
Object type
Archive reference number
Material
Dimensions
height (painting): 541mm
width (painting): 378mm
width (painting): 378mm
Subject
Content object
Description
Botanical study of Aloe africana Arachnoidea [modern taxonomy Haworthia arachnoidea], native to South Africa. The study shows the stalk, flower, and leaves of the succulent plant growing in a terracotta pot, with further detail of two flowers falling from the plant, one revealing the stamens of the flower.
Inscribed in ink across the terracotta pot with the name of the specimen ‘Aloe africana Arachnoidea Com. Prael.’ in Ehret’s handwriting, and on the bottom right hand side beneath the image, with 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 across the terracotta pot with the name of the specimen ‘Aloe africana Arachnoidea Com. Prael.’ in Ehret’s handwriting, and on the bottom right hand side beneath the image, with 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