Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.16933

    Meadow grass

    Date
    1703
    Creator
    Unknown, Artist
    Object type
    Archive reference number
    Material
    Dimensions
    height (page): 165mm
    width (page): 213mm
    Subject
    Biology
       > Botany
    Content object
    nature
       > plant
    Description
    These three ink, wash and body colour drawings depict the plant Gramen paniculatum [meadow grass] with its fruit. The drawings appear in the second of J. J. Scheuchzer's four manuscript volumes describing his journey through the Alps in the early 18th century.

    Johann Jacob Scheuchzer (1672-1733) was a Swiss scholar and physician, who was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1703. He was interested in natural history, fossil records and traces of the impact of the Biblical Flood. The Royal Society sponsored the publication of Scheuchzer's description of the Swiss Alps, [Ouresiphoitis] Helveticus, sive itineris alpini, with several Fellows offering subscriptions to defray the cost of the engravings. As was common practice, the printed illustrations bore the name of the subscriber at the bottom of the plate.
    Transcription
    Gramen paniculatum locutis parvis purpuro-argenteis annuum Raij
    Transcribed by the Making Visible project
    Object history
    Printed in Part 2, Tab. 19 from J. J. Scheuchzer, [Ouresiphoitis] Helveticus, sive itineris alpini (London, 1708), figs 1-3. (First edition in three parts. A second edition with an additional fourth part was published in Leiden in 1723.)

    30 November 1704, 'Dr Woodward presented from Dr Scheuchzer a second disquisition in a Journey to the Alps. Mr Waller, Dr Sloane, and Mr Petiver were desired to peruse this book and give an account of it to the Society. Upon which the Society would appoint a letter to be wrote to him encouraging the worke as it shall deserve. In the meane time the Secretary was ordered to write a Letter to Dr Aglionby to Dr Scheuzer thanking him for his present' (CMO/2/157).

    14 March 1705, 'A letter was read from Dr Scheutzer for Mr Petiver, wherein he thanks the Society, and the Persons who perused his Iter Alpinum, and leaves the Society and Mr Pettiver what parts of it which they shall think fit. Mr Hunt was ordered to give Dr Scheutzer’s MS to Mr Pettiver, to be printed, as he shall judge meet' (JBO/11/67).

    31 October 1705, 'Dr Woodward produced the 1st & 3rd Iter Alpinum of Dr Scheutchzer, which together with the 2d Mr Thorpe proposed to print, which was agreed to, provided he did not deface the Originals' (JBO/11/76).

    14 April 1708, 'Mr Thorpe returned the 3 original mss of Dr Scheuzer’s Itinera Alpina, and presented the book printed to the society he was thanked for the pains he had taken to get it printed, and both mss & printed book were ordered to be put into the library and his effigies in a frame likewise to be presented to be hung up in the Meeting Room' (JBO/11/140).
    Related fellows
    Johann Jakob Scheuchzer (1672 - 1733, Swiss) , Physician
    Associated place
    <The World>
       > Europe
          > Switzerland
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