Natural history

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"Bird and Flowers of Port Jackson"

Artist: Raper, George
Created: [1789]
Dimensions: 45.9 x 32.1 cm
Reference: Raper Drawing - no. 63

 

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Drawing of a bird perched on a tree stump against a plain background, with details of two flowering plants to left and right. The bird is depicted in frontal view with its head turned in profile to the left. It has a black crested head with two white stripes across its face, a yellow breast overlaid with darker yellow hatched lines, and yellow-brown wings overlaid with grey detail. The underside of the tail feathers are composed of grey hatched lines around an unpainted shaft. The plant on the left has short, narrow linear leaves arranged alternately on a green stem with terminal racemes of small pink flowers, mainly tightly budded but with some open and composed of three petals around a yellow centre. The plant on the right has narrow linear leaves arranged on a slender stem, with flowers which appear to consist of one large blue petal marked with white towards the top. 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.

 

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