First Fleet artwork collection

Bird in profile, facing to the left, perched on a tree stump with ground and grass at its base, against an otherwise plain background. The bird has an olive green head and back, with darker markings on the throat. The breast is white with dark markings. The wing feathers are olive green and blue, overlaid with darker hatched lines. The tail is green with white tips. The drawing is framed by a pencil border and annotated in ink and pencil.

• Port Jackson Painter]
• The drawing is annotated in ink at lower right "Natural size A rare Bird".
• The drawing is unsigned and undated.
• The drawing is annotated in ink at top right with the number "69.". This refers to the catalogue list compiled by John Latham c. 1801 which was acquired with the drawings, and is filed with them at the end of the Watling Drawings series.
• The drawing is annotated in pencil at top "Green Grackle Sup. 2-129". This has been copied in ink at lower centre, "Green Grackle. Lathams Syn Suppt. 2.p.129". The page reference is to Latham's Second Supplement to the General Synopsis of Birds (1802).
• This bird was more recently identified as the Olive-backed Oriole, Oriolus sagittatus in Hindwood K. A. (1970).
• The drawing is annotated in pencil at top "Lambert Drawing I. 54". 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 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 reference number 12151
• James Lee of Kensington : purchased ; 1902
• Data sheet available
• Latham, John. Supplement II to the General Synopsis of Birds. London: Leigh, Sotheby, 1802.
• Mathews, G.M. and Iredale, T. 'Thomas Watling, Artist', The Austral Avian Record Vol. 5, pt. No. 1 pp.22-32, 1922.
• Hindwood K. A. 'The "Watling" drawings with incidental notes on the "Lambert" and the "Latham" drawings', Proceedings of the Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales for the years 1968-69 (1970).