Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.12683

    Sea Sorrel

    Date
    1843-1851
    Creator
    Anna Atkins (1799 - 1871, British) , Botanist
    Object type
    Library reference
    RCN9352
    Material
    Technique
    Dimensions
    height (print): 250mm
    width (print): 195mm
    Subject
    Biology
       > Botany
    Content object
    nature
       > plant
    Description
    Study of marine algae Sea sorrel (styled here Desmarestia ligulata). This depicts a frond with tripinnate branches.

    Inscribed in ink beneath the image with the name of the specimen ‘Desmaestia ligulata’ in Atkins's handwriting.

    Blueprint from Photographs of British algae: cyanotype impressions, by Anna Atkins, volume one (London, 1843).

    Anna Atkins (1799- 1871) was a British botanist.
    Object history
    The original purpose of Anna Atkins’ Photographs of British Algae was to provide illustration for William Harvey’s FRS (1811-1866) A manual of British marine algae (1841). It was privately printed by Atkins and is considered the first scientific manual to be printed using photography to replace conventional means of illustration.

    Photographs of British Algae was issued as a part book to various scientific institutions, and Atkins made fifteen part donations to the Royal Society between October 1843 and the end of 1853. The thirteenth donation is listed in the Philosophical Transactions presents register from November 1850-June 1851 as ‘Volume I’ and came with instructions that the plates therein where to be combined with certain from the earlier twelve parts, and any leftover were to be reserved for volumes still to come – volumes II and III.

    It was up to the Royal Society to bind the cyanotypes according to Atkins' instructions. The final result is a 3 volume series containing 425 plates, and an additional gathering of 7 plates, believed to have been sent in to the Society as replacements but never incorporated.
    Associated place
    <The World>
       > Europe
          > United Kingdom
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