Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.17978

    'Melocactus Mexicanus'

    Date
    c.1730
    Creator
    William Sartorius (1695, British)
    Object type
    Archive reference number
    Material
    Dimensions
    height: 375mm
    length: 270mm
    Subject
    Content object
    nature
       > plant
    Description
    Botanical study of Melocactus Mexicanus, also known as Mexican melon-thistle cactus. This plant is native to Mexico. Painting shows close up of the globe shaped green cactus plant from above, covered with spines.

    Painting 30 from MS/109, a collection of botanical paintings by Jacob van Huysum and William Sartorius.

    Inscribed in ink 'Melocactus Mexicanus, spinis creberrimis, corallinis, latis & recurvis Houst.' Also inscribed in different ink 'W Sartorius deli [delineavit - drew]'.

    Specimens of this plant were first brought to Britain from Mexico by Dr William Houstoun.

    William Sartorius (flourished in the early to mid 17th century), British botanical painter, was not a Fellow of the Royal Society. Sartorius was one of the illustrators of the Historia Plantarum Rariorum (1728-1737) written by John Martyn FRS.
    Associated place
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       > Europe
          > United Kingdom
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