Credit: ©The Royal Society
Image number: RS.10995
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'Ricinus americanus'
Date
[c.1735]
Creator
Georg Dionysius Ehret (1708 - 1770, German)
Object type
Archive reference number
Material
Dimensions
height (painting): 380mm
width (painting): 538mm
width (painting): 538mm
Subject
Content object
Description
Botanical study of Ricinus americanus, major, caule virescente [possibly known in modern taxonomy asJatropha curcas, native to the American tropics. The composite study shows the stalk, leaves and flower of the succulent plant, alongside an enlarged study of seed pods on the plant's stalk.
Inscribed in ink beneath the image with the name of the specimen ‘Ricinus americanus, major, caule virescente’.
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 ‘Ricinus americanus, major, caule virescente’.
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