drawing;
album
- Museum number
- SL,5261.103
- Description
-
A reindeer (Rangifer tarandus), in an album originally containing 167 drawings of quadrupeds; standing in profile to left, in a rocky landscape
Watercolour
- Production date
- 1709-1773
- Dimensions
-
Height: 239 millimetres
-
Width: 299 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- This drawing is probably related to the etching (dated July 29 1740) made in reverse by George Edwards in his ‘A Natural History of Uncommon Birds’ [final title], volume I, plate 51, where the artist wrote: “I saw a Head of perfect Horns brought over with these Deer. Which had two large palmed Branches over the Eyes, conveniently placed as Shovels, to remove the Snow from the Gras; a little above these were two other Palms, but less, standing outward; above these each Horn spread itself into five round Branches not at all palmed. A Male and Female of these Deer were presented to Sir Hans Sloane, Anno 1738, by Captain Craycott, who brought them over. Sir Hans afterwards presented them to his Grace the Duke of Richmond, who sent them to his park in Sussex. I hear they are since dead, without any increase. This is by some supposed to be the Rain-deer of the Laplanders and the Russians; but I cannot pretend to assert it is, or is not.”
Though in this accompanying text Edwards does not say from where the specimens came exactly, he titled his etching the ‘Greenland buck’, and the description he gives of the head of horns clearly recalls SL,5261.98, which has on its verso a long inscription that plainly states the specimens were brought from Greenland. These facts, together with the specimens' seemingly small size, suggest that they were a tundra subspecies of reindeer, perhaps either the barren-ground reindeer, Rangifer tarandus groenlandicus, or even the now extinct Arctic reindeer, Rangifer tarandus eogroenlandicus. For further information on Edwards’ drawings of reindeer, see SL,5261.98.
In album SL,5261.1 to 167.
- Location
- Not on display
- Associated titles
Associated Title: A natural history of uncommon birds (1743-1751)
- Acquisition date
- 1753
- Acquisition notes
- Transferred to Prints and Drawings 17 November 1886 (see note on fly-leaf). Transferred from the Department of Manuscripts.
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- SL,5261.103
