First Fleet artwork collection

Drawing of a bird perched on a tree stump against a plain background, with two details of flowering plants. The bird is depicted in right profile. Its body is predominantly red except for a blue chin, and overlaid with darker hatched lines and black crescent-shaped markings on its back. The wing and tail feathers are blue and individually detailed with hatched lines. The tree stump is pale yellow overlaid with grey and brown contour-like brush marks, shaded to the left and set on a patch of ground represented by a pale grey-brown wash overlaid with grey brush marks. The plant on the right has short blade-like leaves which sheath a slender green stem which terminates in three blue flowers. The flowers have five petals, each with a darker central stripe, and a white and grey speckled centre. The plant on the left has a speckled green-brown stem which terminates in a flower spike with small green speckled leaves, pink flower buds, and flowers composed of five pale pink and white petals with black and white striped ovaries and a red and yellow stigma. 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 "FLOWER'S, & PAROQUET of PORT JACKSON - Natural Size - GEO: RapeR#. - 1789 -".
• The drawing is signed "GEO: RapeR" and dated 1789.
• The drawing is inscribed in pencil at lower left with the number "50", at lower right "49", and on the reverse "3".
• The bird was identified by Hindwood (1964) as the Crimson Rosella, Platycercus elegans.
• The drawing of the plant resembles one in the sketchbook by John Hunter in the National Library of Australia, Canberra. John Calaby has identified that plant as the Native fuschsia Epacris longiflora. (Calaby, John (ed). The Hunter Sketchbook. Melbourne, National Library of Australia, 1989 p. 146.)
• 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 15150
• 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.