Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.19680

    Lion

    Date
    1688
    Creator
    Richard Waller (1660 - 1715, British) , Naturalist
    After
    the elder Le Clerc (1637 - 1714, French) , Artist
    Object type
    Library reference
    57977
    Material
    Technique
    Dimensions
    height (page): 300mm
    width (page): 200mm
    height (print): 205mm
    width (print): 155mm
    Subject
    Content object
    nature
       > animal
          > lion
    Description
    Zoological and anatomical study of a lion, Panthera leo, shown in left profile against a rocky plain, facing forward [below], and dissected, with various individual bones and organs depicted [above], such as: the cranium, zygoma, incisors, molars, tongue, gall-bladder, bladder, heart.

    Inscribed above: ‘pag. 2’

    Written in the associated explanation: ‘In the lower Figure he is represented alive, his Head turned on one side, as he sometimes carries it; notwithstanding the stifness of his Neck. The Claws tho' very great are indiscernable, being covered with hair, which is very long at the extremity of the Paws.’

    Unnumbered plate from a translated edition of Charles Perrault’s Memoires pour servir à l'histoire naturelle des animaux: Memoir's for a natural history of animals containing the anatomical descriptions of several creatures dissected by the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris, Englished by A.P. (London, 1688). A work of comparative anatomy featuring specimens from the Royal menageries at Vincennes and Versailles.

    Charles Perrault (1628-1703) was a French author, naturalist and member of the Académie Française. The translator (‘A. P’), Alexander Pitfeild (c.1658-1728), was a merchant and Fellow of the Royal Society, elected in 1684, Council Member throughout the late 17th century and Treasurer between 1700-1728.
    Associated place
    <The World>
       > Europe
          > France
    <The World>
       > Europe
          > United Kingdom
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