First Fleet artwork collection

Drawing of a cockatoo perched on a tree branch against a plain background, with a detail of a flowering shrub to the right and a pencil outline of a different flower to the left. The bird is depicted in frontal view with its head turned in profile to the right. It is predominantly coloured white, with a yellow crest on its head and yellow undersides to the wing and tail, and overlaid with grey hatched lines. The breast is patterned with dotted crescent-shaped lines, and the tail and primary feathers of the wing are indicated with hatched lines. The branch on which it is perched is coloured with a pale brown wash overlaid with grey and fawn brush marks. The plant on the right has narrow, linear pinnate leaves arranged alternately on a brown stem. The flowers have four pink petals, arranged round a black and white striped centre.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, signature and date. 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 "SHRUB & COCKATOO of PORT-JACKSON - the Latter 1/3 Less Natural Size GEO: RapeR.# - 1789 ~".
• The drawing is signed "GEO: RapeR" and dated 1789.
• The drawing is inscribed in pencil at bottom left and right with the number "61", and on the reverse "69".
• The bird was identified by Hindwood (1964) as the White Cockatoo Kakatoe galerita. ITIS lists the preferred name for this species as the Sulphur-crested Cockatoo Cacatua galerita.
• John Calaby notes the similarity of the plant in this drawing to one in the sketchbook by John Hunter in the National Library of Australia, Canberra, which he identifies as the Pinnate boronia Boronia pinnata. (Calaby, John (ed). The Hunter Sketchbook. Melbourne, National Library of Australia, 1989 p. 134.)
• 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) General Library and Picture Library: Picture Library order number 15161
• 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.