First Fleet artwork collection

Bird in profile, facing to the right with its head pointing upwards. It is perched on a branch against a plain background. The bird has a red bill and legs, and red detail around the eye. The head is brown, fading to pale blue - grey on the breast. The back is blue-brown. The wing and tail feathers are black - dark brown and blue, with white marks on the wings. The drawing is framed by a pencil border and annotated in ink and pencil.

• Port Jackson Painter]
• The drawing is annotated in brown ink at bottom "Half the size of the Bird this Drawing was taken from. It is a rare Bird, the third only that we have yet seen, the colours are much too dull.".
• The drawing is unsigned and undated.
• The drawing is inscribed in ink at top right with the number "64.". 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 "Pacific Roller Syn Sup. ii. 371 or oriental Roller variety". This has been copied in brown ink at bottom, "Pacific Roller or Oriental Roller, a variety Latham Syn Suppt= 2 p 371". The page reference is to Latham's Second Supplement to the General Synopsis of Birds (1802).
• This bird was more recently identified as the Dollar-bird, Eurystomus orientalis in Hindwood K. A. (1970).
• The drawing is annotated in pencil at top "Lambert Drawing II. 83". 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.
• A separate label affixed to the mount alongside the drawing at lower right is inscribed in pencil "Type".
• 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 12147
• James Lee of Kensington : purchased ; 1902
• Data sheet available
• Latham, John. Supplement II to the General Synopsis of Birds. London: Leigh, Sotheby, 1802.
• 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).