First Fleet artwork collection

Drawing of three different fishes, arranged in a column on a plain background. The fish at the top is depicted in right profile and is of fusiform body shape, mottled dull turquoise and brown in colour with brown vertical stripes down the side. The pectoral fin is yellow, and the dorsal and anal fins blue and red. The fish in the centre is depicted in left profile and is coloured predominantly green overlaid with darker hatched lines, with red horizontal stripes on the face and narrow vertical red stripes on the body. The pectoral fin is yellow and blue, the dorsal and anal fins red and green, and the tail yellow-orange. The fish at the bottom has a coiled, eel-like body shape, with its head at lower left and tail above and to the right. It is coloured off-white to yellow with brown bands and markings, and has a brown-grey dorsal fin which runs the length of its spine. The drawing is framed with a thick black ink line and a triple-banded border, the central band of which is coloured with a pink wash and contains the title and date. The signature is located at lower right in the inner band. Most of the outer band appears to have been lost through the drawing having been cropped.

• George Raper]
• The drawing is inscribed in black ink at bottom "FISHES of NORFOLK-ISLAND, Natural Size 1790 -".
• The drawing is signed at lower right "GEO: RapeR.#~" an dated 1790.
• The drawing is inscribed in pencil at bottom left with the number "40", at bottom right "39", and on the reverse "38".
• John Calaby notes the similarity of the drawing to two separate drawings in the sketchbook by John Hunter in the National Library of Australia, Canberra, except that the top two fish in Raper's drawing are depicted hanging from fish hooks in Hunter's drawing. Calaby identifies the fish as Sandager's Wrasse Coris sandageri, the Yellow-green Wrasse Thalassoma lutescens and the Banded Snake-eel Elopsopis cyclorhinus. (Calaby, John (ed). The Hunter Sketchbook. Melbourne, National Library of Australia, 1989 p. 168 and 170.) Fishbase lists current names as Coris sandeyeri and Elapsopis cyclorhinus.
• The author of this catalogue record is Suzanne Stenning.
• By permission of the trustees of the Natural History Museum (London).
• Two sets of transparencies held in the Natural History Museum (London) Zoology Library and Picture Library: Picture Library order number 15140
• Miss Eva Godman donated 1962
• Data sheet available.
• Hindwood, K.A. 'George Raper: an Artist of the First Fleet', Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Australian Historical Society, Vol. 50, Pt. 1, 1964 pp.32-57.