Tony Rice, Voyages of Discovery: Three Centuries of Natural History Exploration, Written by Dr Tony Rice, With an Introduction by Dr David Bellamy. London: The Natural History Museum, 2000.
Large quarto (32x28cm), hardcover, dustwrapper, 335 pages, magnificently illustrated with facsimiles of antiquarian natural history illustrations, etc.
In very good condition.
VOYAGES OF DISCOVERY is a mesmerising visual record of some of the most significant, and beautiful, discoveries in the history of natural science exploration. Superb artworks and photographs spanning three centuries document advances and watersheds in the field of natural science. The stories behind these imagesof explorers, naturalists, artists and photographersentwine in a fascinating study of human achievement and natural wonder. Handpicked from the vast Library of The Natural History Museum in London, the illustrations and artworks contained here form a rare collection, most of which has never been in the public eye.
Highlights include Sir Hans Sloane's voyage to Jamaica in 1687 collecting and recording still-preserved plant specimens, cocoa among them; Maria Sybilla Merian's personal sojourn to Surinam in 1699 to record brilliant butterflies and bizarre insects; Darwin's fateful trip to the Galapagos cataloguing finches and fossils; William Bartram's fanciful yet detailed documentation of North American wildlife; and Matthew Flinders' mapping of Australia, accompanied by perhaps the greatest of all the natural science artists, Ferdinand Bauer.
The Natural History Museum in London is a repository for some of the most exciting and comprehensive collections of natural science specimens, literature and artworks to be found anywhere in the world. It holds 68,000,000 specimens, some several centuries old; close to half a million works of art on paper, comprising one of Britain's biggest art collections and representing all the great natural history artists; and one million books, including rare, richly illustrated antique volumes. Together they constitute an unrivalled resource, consulted daily by scientists and scholars worldwide, and consolidated here in a single volume of many of the most potent images created in the course of natural history.
