Credit: ©The Royal Society
Image number: RS.10991
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'Senna-spuria arborescens'
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 Senna-spuria arborescens, pseudoacacia foliis, floribus luteis, siliquis angustis longissimis, native to South Africa. The composite study shows a section of the stalk, flower, and leaves of the plant. Also include details of two individual flowers from different angles, and a section showing the seed pod of the plant, with three seeds drawn next to it.
Inscribed in ink beneath the image with the name of the specimen ‘Senna-spuria arborescens, pseudoacacia foliis, floribus luteis, siliquis angustis longissimis’ in Ehret’s handwriting, and in the bottom right hand corner 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 beneath the image with the name of the specimen ‘Senna-spuria arborescens, pseudoacacia foliis, floribus luteis, siliquis angustis longissimis’ in Ehret’s handwriting, and in the bottom right hand corner 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