The Zoological Sketches are two volumes of 100 plates published between 1857 and 1867. They show particularly rare animals from Regent’s Park in London, which Joseph Wolf captured in watercolours and on the basis of which Joseph Smit made lithographs. The edited notes were written by David William Mitchell, Secretary of the Zoological Society. After his death his successor, Philip Lutley Sclater, took over the work and completed the volumes.

The Library of the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin holds a copy of this title in its collection. There is a digital copy of the work in BHL, contributed by the Ernst Mayr Library of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University.

Regent’s Park, now London Zoo, was founded in 1828 for the purpose of scientific observation of wild animals from all parts of the British Empire. “In the year 1852 the Council of the Zoological Society […] resolved to commence the formation of a series of original water-colour drawings […]. For this purpose the Council were fortunate enough to secure the services of Mr. Joseph Wolf, who may be fairly said to stand alone in intimate knowledge of the habits and forms of Mammals and of Birds. …“(Preface).

Joseph Wolf was born on 22 January 1820 in Mörz (Germany). He was trained as a lithographer in Münster, but also mastered the work with pencil, water and oil paints, and coal. He worked in different places in Europe before coming to London in 1840 to work at the British Museum as an animal illustrator. By that time, he had already made a name for himself with his illustrations, especially of birds.  Sir Edwin Landseer described him as “… without exception, the best all-round animal painter that ever lived. …” (Palmer 1895, p. 283). The Zoological Society appointed Wolf as its resident artist in 1861.

Wolf, who until then only sketched animals in the wild, always dealt with the self-assertion of the individual and incorporated this into his works. The housing of the animals in the zoo in which they did not show their natural behaviour was therefore a challenge for him.

Animals that came to Regent’s Park in the 19th century often had a long, exhausting journey behind them. Wolf wrote “… for sometimes, when they arrived, they were in a miserable state, and hardly I knew what to make of them. I used to do two or three of these drawings in a day, if the material were good. All these were vignettes only; but I took care to get the true character of the animal” (Palmer 195, p. 110).

In addition to the embellished depictions of the individuals, most of the 100 plates show the zoo animals in an ideal, natural environment. A few, however, provide insights into zoo life and depict the animals in their enclosures or provide a view of the visitors. Although the animals are described anonymously by Mitchell and Sclater, the records of the Zoological Society allow us to deduce which individuals of Regent Park’s Wolf drew.

The hippopotamus bull Obaysh came to Regent’s Park as a calf on 25 May 1850 and quickly became a crowd puller. In 1854, he got a companion, Adhela. On plate XXVII (Part I) are two adult hippos, as well as a herd in the background, a mother with a calf and a western swamphen in a natural habitat. Since Joseph Wolf himself never visited Africa, he relied on third party sources for the design of the environment. For all the hippopotami depicted, especially the two individuals in the foreground, Obaysh and Adhela were probably models. Their names are not mentioned in the text and the representation of the right side of the body makes it impossible to identify Obaysh by a characteristic scar on his left side. As Obaysh and Adhela were the only hippos in the zoo, Wolf used different sketches of them for the herd to show different behaviours of the species.

The situation is similar with plate XXIV, Part 2, where a herd of elephants shows up in a supposedly natural environment. Probably Jumbo, who came to Regent’s Park on 26 June 1865, and Alice were depicted. This plate makes it clear that Wolf’s depiction of zoo animals does not show their natural behaviour. The picture of the bull elephant together with the cow and a calf rather reflects the ideal of a Victorian family, as bull elephants are rouges. Furthermore, in African elephants, both females and males have tusks but the cow elephant shown here does not seem to have any. This can be explained by the fact that Alice was only 2 years old when Wolf made his sketches, and her tusks were apparently not yet fully developed.

Plate XVII, Part 1 is one of the few that shows an animal in its zoo enclosure. The almost portrait-like drawing shows a Syrian Bear on straw in front of a board wall. It is not possible to take a closer look at the surroundings, e.g. to determine whether he lives together with other animals of the same species or to measure the dimensions of the enclosure.  By depicting the bear in its actual accommodation, Wolf focuses on the animal’s personality; the bear no longer remains anonymous. The accompanying text also mentions that the bear was a gift from the Persian Gulf and arrived in London in August 1851.

The discussed plates show a selection of the illustrations of the Zoological Sketches and set highlights on individual features that are characteristic for this work. Despite their idealization and partial embellishment, they remain true to their scientific purpose and are an outstanding example of 19th century European animal painting.

You can also explore all of the artworks from this title in the BHL Flickr: Volume One | Volume Two

Sources

Palmer, A. H. 1895. The life of Joseph Wolf,: animal painter. London: Longmans, Green.
Susset, Nicole Ricarda, and Nicole Ricarda Susset. 2013. Lebendigkeit im Bild: Joseph Wolf und die Tiermalerei im 19. Jahrhundert.
Schulze-Hagen, Karl, and Joseph Wolf. 2000. Joseph Wolf (1820-1899), Tiermaler. Marburg an der Lahn: Basilisken-Presse.

Visit any major botanical research institute today and you’ll find a herbarium, or a collection of preserved plant specimens. These specimens are used to identify plants, to track where and when particular plants grow, and to help understand how plants are influenced by climate change and other environmental factors.

Formal herbaria have been around for about five hundred years. The first recorded herbarium was created by Italian physician and botanist Luca Ghini in the early 1500s. Called a Hortus Siccus, or “dry garden”, the herbarium was populated by drying plants under pressure between pieces of paper and then mounting the specimens for study. Today, herbaria are integral to botanical research.

Dr. Maura Flannery, Professor Emerita of Biology at St. John’s University in New York and a Research Associate in the A.C. Moore Herbarium at the University of South Carolina – Columbia, studies the complex history of herbaria, their many uses, their digital future, and relationships between herbaria and botanical art. While she has been studying biology and its links to art over most of her career, Flannery’s interest in herbaria emerged about ten years ago.

Access to a research library is indispensable for herbaria-related research. Whether it be consulting species descriptions for specimens in a herbarium, investigating the history of the collecting expedition in which a specimen was procured, or obtaining complementary data for herbarium specimens, library collections are a rich resource for anyone interested in botanical science and associated collections.

Research libraries, however, are not always easily accessible. Even when they are accessible, visiting myriad, distributed libraries is quite time-intensive. Fortunately, the Biodiversity Heritage Library is breaking down these barriers to access.

“BHL is like having a world-class library in my home,” explains Flannery. “Until two years ago, I lived close to many wonderful research libraries in New York City, but any one of them was an hour away. Now I live in South Carolina, and have access to the great library at the University of South Carolina, and with BHL and other online resources, I can work just as effectively here. BHL has done more than impact my research — it has made it possible, or at least, made it more practical.”

Flannery first discovered BHL over a decade ago during a seminar given at the New York Academy of Sciences. Now, she uses the Library almost every day. She often highlights BHL on her blog, Herbarium World, in which she discusses herbaria and their importance. While she frequently accesses the Library to track down citations or download PDFs of articles relevant to her research, Flannery’s favorite feature is the ability to access millions of scientific illustrations and download them as high resolution images.

“Botanical art is where all my interests come together, and there is no place like BHL to nurture them,” asserts Flannery on Herbarium World.

BHL’s Flickr is a particularly useful resource for Flannery’s artistic interests. She uses it both to search for illustrations or simply, as she describes it, to “browse to feed my soul”.

One of Flannery’s favorite books in BHL, De historia stirpium commentarii insignes (“Notable Commentaries on the History of Plants”), is an excellent example of the intersection between botanical art, science, and herbaria. Authored by German physician and botanist Leonhart Fuchs and published in Basel in 1542, this title is one of the first modern herbals. Covering nearly 500 plants, the Historia included over 500 woodcuts and illustrated over 100 species for the first time in a published work. The woodcuts were made from drawings by Albrecht Meyer based on live plants, which were transferred to woodblocks by Heinrich Füllmaurer and cut into wood by Veit Rudolf Speckle (Glasgow University Library).

The Historia also has an interesting tie to the history of the herbarium. The author, Leonhart Fuchs, was a correspondent with Luca Ghini, the father of the herbarium. The two traded specimens, illustrations, and notes, and, as Flannery explains on Herbarium World, it was Fuchs’ herbal that helped convince Ghini of the value of illustrations. The Historia thus helps connect the historic value of both pressed specimens and illustrations as botanical teaching and research tools.

Given the historical and artistic significance of Fuchs’ work, it’s not surprising that it’s one of Flannery’s favorite titles in BHL. Another favorite is Stephen West Williams’ Herbarium, which consists of mounted specimens of American plants collected by Williams and others. It is accompanied by an index to the specimens articulating their medicinal and culinary uses along with watercolors of plants by his wife, Harriet Goodhue Williams.

Flannery is keen to see the Library acquire more manuscripts and correspondence, which can offer valuable historical context and help illuminate scientific networks and the exchange of information during centuries past. Since such materials are unique, accessing them previously required visiting each individual holding library or archive. But today, through digitization, these resources are available to the world.

A recent example from Flannery’s experience is the correspondence of John Torrey, one of the most important taxonomic botanists of the nineteenth century. The New York Botanical Garden is in the midst of a project to digitize and transcribe Torrey’s papers.

“Several years ago, I had to spend time visiting the Mertz Library at New York Botanical Garden to read John Torrey’s letters,” recalls Flannery. “Now, they are available through BHL.”

By offering easy online access, a rich collection including both published and archival materials, and an array of research tools, BHL has not only been a game-changer for Flannery but, as she articulates on Herbarium World, it has truly transformed biological research today.

“I often use the word ‘luxury’ to describe such instant access, what other word really applies?…We have come a LONG way from the days when searching for sources meant pulling Biological Abstracts tomes from the shelves.”

The Consortium of European Taxonomic Facilities (CETAF) is launching a new initiative to reward early-career researchers, within the fields of taxonomy, biodiversity and geodiversity science, who base their research on natural science collections. E-SCORE – Excellence in Scientific Collections-based Research, is a celebration of the new generation of scientists who have shown dedication to the use of collections that help document, describe and understand life on earth, and the processes that have shaped it. The award also celebrates the United Nations endorsed International Day for Biological Diversity, which falls annually on the 22nd of May to commemorate the 1992 adoption of the Convention on Biological Diversity. CETAF will award E-SCORE for the first time in 2020 to mark the end of the UN International Decade of Biodiversity.

The foundations of E-SCORE are the natural-scientific collections that are hosted, preserved and curated in research organisations across the European Community and in associated countries with CETAF member institutions. The research staff of these institutions explore and document diversity in nature. The knowledge they collectively build provides a foundation on which policies and initiatives for nature conservation and the protection of natural resources are based. By awarding E-SCORE, CETAF wishes to highlight the significance of collections-based research in the fight against biodiversity loss and climate change.

FEATURES

The prize will be given annually and consists of three parts:

• A cash prize of 1,000 €;
• Financial support (up to 1,000 €) to facilitate a scientific visit of the Award Winner to one of the CETAF institutes;
• An invitation to the next CETAF Governing Board meeting for a (virtual) presentation of the winning research.

Young researchers from all over the world are eligible; affiliation with a CETAF member is not mandatory. For those without current affiliation, their application shall include a nomination from a member of a CETAF institution.

Applications are due by 31 January 2020. For more information, including eligibility criteria and the application form, go to the CETAF website.

Please spread this great opportunity widely in your networks and encourage all deserving young researchers to participate!

CETAF and BHL have been reciprocal partners since 2018.