drawing;
album
- Museum number
- SL,5275.41
- Description
-
Orange-flowered plant, encircled by a blue-flowering plant, with red tuber, from an album of 91 drawings entitled 'Merian's Drawings of Surinam Insects &c'; with examples of a bug, and two moths, caterpillars and pupa
Watercolour and bodycolour, with pen and grey ink
- Production date
- 1701-1705 (circa)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 386 millimetres
-
Width: 279 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- Entry from J.Harvey's commentary to the Folio Society facsimile of the Surinam Album (London, 2006):
'Two plants are illustrated in this watercolour. The dramatic red flowering plant is Canna indica (Linnaeus), known as Tropical Rose or Indian Shot. Its black seeds were thought to appear similar to lead shot ammunition used in the 18th century, today they are used as jewelry. The plant with the blue flower is the Sweet Potato, Ipomoea batatus (Linnaeus) Lamark, a native of South America. It produces a tuber which grows underground and is depicted bottom right. Merian described it as “somewhat paler than the European carrot, they can be cooked like carrots or with meat; their taste is very like that of chestnuts, but they are softer and even sweeter than the latter”.
The colourful bug shown top right is Pachylis pharaonis (Herbst.), family Coreidae.'
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1753
- Acquisition notes
- Transferred to P&D 11 March 1885 (see note on fly-leaf of album SL,5275.1-91). Transferred from the Department of Manuscripts.
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- SL,5275.41
- Additional IDs
-
Miscellaneous number: N,01.41