drawing;
album(?)
- Museum number
- SL,5270.106
- Description
-
Verso: Gar Pike (Lepisosteus osseus Linn), leaf from a volume (now consisting of 113 leaves of drawings), associated with John White
Watercolour, touched with white or silver (oxidised)
- Production date
- 1585-1593
- Dimensions
-
Height: 391 millimetres
-
Width: 265 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- See curatorial comment for BM SL-5270.1 for a discussion of the album which contains this series of drawings and SL,5270.97 for a discussion of the series of drawings of fish and reptiles (SL,5270.97 to 113).
There is an 18th century copy of this drawing in watercolour, commissioned by Hans Sloane before 1707 in British Library Add MS5267.96.
The gar is a freshwater fish that can tolerate quite brackish water with low oxygen levels. They have a heavy armour of interlocking scales and few predators. They are not good eating fish but are host to a freshwater mussel. Catesby included this fish in his 'Natural History of Carolina' (II,30), basing his illustration on the watercolour copy Sloane had made from it (above).
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1753
- Acquisition notes
- See Acq.Hist in BM SL-5270.1. Transferred from the Department of Manuscripts.
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- SL,5270.106