Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.17993

    Mulberry specimen

    Date
    ca.1730
    Creator
    Jacob van Huysum (1682 - 1745, Dutch) , Painter
    Object type
    Archive reference number
    Material
    Dimensions
    height (page): 373mm
    width (page): 264mm
    Subject
    Content object
    nature
       > plant
          > fruit
    Description
    Botanical study of a specimen of Morus nigra, common name black mulberry, referred to here as Morus virginiana. Depicts a large green leaf attached to a detached section of branch, with a red berry inset.

    Painting 45 from MS/109, a collection of botanical paintings by Jacob van Huysum and William Sartorius.

    Inscribed in ink 'Morus Virginiana foliis latissimis scabris fructu rubro longiori.' Not signed.

    American mulberry was transported to England in 1629, described in John Parkinson's Paradisi in sole paradisus terrestris, or A garden of all sorts of pleasant flowers (1629), and first listed as 'Morus Virginiana' by John Tradescant in 1634. It is also described in the Society of Gardeners' Catalogus Plantarum (1730), contemporary to this painting.

    Jacob van Huysum (1682-1745), Dutch botanical painter, was not a Fellow of the Royal Society. He produced most of the 50 illustrations for the Historia Plantarum Rariorum (London: 1728-38) written by John Martyn FRS, and all the drawings for Philip Miller’s Catalogus Plantarum, an index of trees, shrubs, plants and flowers.
    Object history
    Repeated in the British Museum collection, SL,5284.100. Slight variations to the Royal Society copy. Digital image available on online catalogue.
    Associated place
    <The World>
       > Europe
          > United Kingdom
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