First Fleet artwork collection

Two mammals, one holding a dead hen, depicted standing on a mound of green, pink and blue wash overlaid with grey lines, against a white and blue wash sky. The animal in the foreground is depicted in profile facing to the right, with its long tail curling round to the right. It is painted dark brown or black overlaid with black hatched lines and white spots, which have a glazed appearance. The animal behind appears to be of the same species but is pale brown with white spots overlaid with black hatched lines. It is shown in profile facing to the left, and holding a dead white hen in its fore-paws. The drawing is framed by a double ink-lined border and annotated in pencil and brown ink.

• Port Jackson Painter]
• The drawing is inscribed in blue pencil at top right with the number "94". This refers to the pre-1984 numbering system for the Watling Collection.
• The drawing is unsigned and undated.
• The drawing is annotated in brown ink at the bottom, below the ink border, "The native name of the brown Animal is Mer-re-a-gan, the black Din-e-gow-a."
• This mammal has more recently been identified by John Calaby in Wheeler and Smith (1988) as the Eastern native cat, Dasyurus viverrinus.
• The drawing is annotated in pencil at top left "Lambert Drawing I.5". This refers to a related set of drawings from the collections of the 13th Earl of Derby, held in the Library at Knowsley Hall, Lancashire.
• The author if 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 reference number 12084
• James Lee of Kensington : Purchased ; 1902.
• Data sheet available.
• This drawing is reproduced in Wheeler, A. and Smith, B, (eds.) The Art of the First Fleet and other early Australian Drawings. New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1988. (Plate 172, p. 162.)