Empire's Nature: Mark Catesby's New World Vision

by Amy R. W. Meyers (Editor), Margaret Beck Pritchard (Editor)

Overview

Completed in 1747, Mark Catesby's Natural History of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands was the first major illustrated publication on the flora and fauna of Britain's American colonies. Together with his Hortus Britanno-Americanus (1763), which detailed plant species that might be transplanted successfully to British soil, Catesby's Natural History exerted an important, though often overlooked, influence on the development of art, natural history, and scientific observation in the eighteenth century.
Inspired by a major traveling exhibition of Catesby's watercolor drawings from the Royal Library, Windsor Castle, this collection of interdisciplinary essays considers Catesby's endeavors as a naturalist-artist, scientific explorer, experimental horticulturist, ornamental gardener, and early environmental thinker in terms of the interests held by the various, overlapping communities in which he functioned—particularly as those interests related to the British colonial enterprise.
The contributors are David R. Brigham, Joyce E. Chaplin, Mark Laird, Amy R. W. Meyers, Therese O'Malley, and Margaret Beck Pritchard.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807847626
Publisher:	Omohundro Institute and UNC Press
Publication date:	03/15/1999
Series:	Published by the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture and the University of North Carolina Press
Edition description:	1
Pages:	296
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Amy R. W. Meyers is curator of American art at The Henry E. Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, California.

Margaret Beck Pritchard is curator of prints, maps, and wallpaper at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation in Virginia.

Table of Contents

Contents

Foreword
Acknowledgments
List of Illustrations
Chronology of Mark Catesby

Introduction: Toward an Understanding of Catesby
Amy R. W. Meyers and Margaret Beck Pritchard
Mark Catesby, a Skeptical Newtonian in America
Joyce E. Chaplin
Mark Catesby and the Patronage of Natural History in the First Half of the Eighteenth Century
David R. Brigham
Mark Catesby and the Culture of Gardens
Therese O'Malley
From Callicarpa to Catalpa: The Impact of Mark Catesby's Plant Introductions on English Gardens of the Eighteenth Century
Mark Laird
Picturing a World in Flux: Mark Catesby's Response to Environmental Interchange and Colonial Expansion
Amy R. W. Meyers

Index
Notes on the Contributors

Illustrations

1. Cougar. Buffon, Natural History
2. Caterpillars and Butterflies on Specific Plants. Réaumur, Mémoires
3. Flamingo's Bill. Catesby, Natural History
4. Rattlesnake. Catesby, Natural History
5. Yellow-Breasted Chat. Catesby, Natural History
6. Jamaica Blackbird. Catesby, Natural History
7. Red-Flowering Maple. Catesby, Natural History
8. Caterpillars Using Leaves to Make Cocoons. Réaumur, Histoire des insectes
9. Gall Insects. Réaumur, Histoire des insectes
10. Insect Biting. Réaumur, Histoire des insectes
11. Chiggers, Heron, and Eft. Catesby, Natural History
12. Sir Hans Sloane, Bt.
13. Meadia. Catesby, Natural History
14. Map of Asia. Senex, Modern Geography
15. Map of North America. Senex, Modern Geography
16. The Genius of Health
17. Catesbaea. Catesby, Natural History
18. The City Gardener. By Thomas Fairchild
19. Magnolia Altissima. Catesby, in Gray, Catalogue
20. November. From Furber, Twelve Months of Flowers
21. A Seat on the Ashley River
22. Westover
23. A Draught of John Bartram's House and Garden
24. The Yellow Lady's Slipper and the Black Squirrel. Catesby, Natural History
25. A View of Savannah
26. The Botanic Gardens at Chelsea
27. The Catalpa Tree and the Bastard Baltimore. Catesby, Natural History
28. Plumeria Flore Roseo Odoratissimo. Catesby, Natural History
29. The Dogwood Tree and the Mock-Bird. Catesby, Natural History
30. The Vanelloe. Catesby, Natural History
31. The Cacao Tree. Catesby, Natural History
32. The Logwood and the Green Lizard of Jamaica. Catesby, Natural History
33. Bison Americanus and Rose Acacia. Catesby, Natural History
34. Papaw. Catesby, Natural History
35. The Botanical Garden at Leiden
36. A Map of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands. Catesby, Natural History
37. The Dogwood Tree and the Mock-Bird. Catesby, Natural History
38. The Callicarpa. Catesby, Natural History
39. Smilax and Bastard Indigo. Catesby, Hortus Britanno-Americanus
40. The Botanic Gardens at Chelsea
41. Layout of Chelsea Physic Garden
42. Disposition of Deciduous Trees and Shrubs for a Plantation. Meader, The Planter's Guide
43. Ptelea, or Shrub Trefoil. Catesby, Natural History
44. Disposition of Trees and Shrubs for an Evergreen Plantation. Meader, The Planter's Guide
45. Agrifolium Carolinense and the Little Thrush. Catesby, Natural History
46. Carolina Allspice. Catesby, Natural History
47. Bison Americanus and Rose Acacia. Catesby, Natural History
48. Stuartia. Catesby, Natural History
49. Kalmia. Catesby, Natural History
50. The Catalpa Tree and the Bastard Baltimore. Catesby, Natural History
51. Catalpa etc. Catesby, Hortus Britanno-Americanus
52. Brown Viper and Arum. Catesby, Natural History
53. Drawing of Bald Eagle. For Catesby, Natural History
54. Bald Eagle. Catesby, Natural History
55. Drawing of Blew Jay and Smilax. For Catesby, Natural History
56. Blew Jay and Smilax. Catesby, Natural History
57. Rice-Bird. Catesby, Natural History
58. Drawing of Rice-Bird. For Catesby, Natural History

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Empire's Nature simultaneously provides a compendium of primary data, a rich sampling of current methodological approaches, and provocative ideas that push the envelope of historical interpretation. . . . This book will find an important place in any library.—William and Mary Quarterly



A useful addition to libraries of readers with a particular interest in the history of colonial or eighteenth-century British science or art.—Journal of Southern History



A handsomely illustrated collection of essays . . . [that] admirably reassesses Catesby's importance to the recording of natural history.—Virginia Magazine of History and Biography



A thoughtful and sometimes provocative reexamination of Mark Catesby's roles in British natural history during the early eighteenth century. In contrast to most previous work on Catesby, which has focused primarily on his activities as an illustrator of plants and animals, the Meyers volume explores Catesby's life and work in the much broader perspective of the social, political, economic, cultural, and scientific milieu of his time.—North Carolina Historical Review



Empire's Nature is a wonderful book, a meticulous tracing of Catesby's sumptuous welding of botany and zoology into eighteenth-century natural history and into timeless visual art.—John R. Stilgoe, Harvard University



This important new collection situates artist/naturalist Mark Catesby's works and professional activities within the context of the cultural, sociopolitical, and economic exchanges that marked Britain's relationship with its New World colonies in the early eighteenth century . . . a richly rewarding volume for readers interested in the history of science, art, and political culture of the circum-Atlantic world.—K. Dian Kriz, Brown University



Empire's Nature combines a plethora of natural history information with insights into the significance of Mark Catesby as artist and naturalist. . . . Empire's Nature informs us of the specifics of Catesby's achievement to illuminate the larger eighteenth-century scientific and imperial cultural context.—Jules David Prown, Yale University



This compelling and scholarly array of essays establishes Catesby and his career as necessary to full understanding of colonial interactions and natural history in the eighteenth century. The illustrations from Catesby's work are magnificent, and the collection is imaginatively edited.—Gillian Beer, Clare Hall, Cambridge University

Editorial Reviews

A thoughtful and sometimes provocative reexamination of Mark Catesby s roles in British natural history during the early eighteenth century.

"North Carolina Historical Review"

A wonderful book, a meticulous tracing of Catesby's sumptuous welding of botany and zoology into eighteenth-century natural history.

John R. Stilgoe, Harvard University

"A wonderful book, a meticulous tracing of Catesby's sumptuous welding of botany and zoology into eighteenth-century natural history.

John R. Stilgoe, Harvard University"

A handsomely illustrated collection of essays .

"Virginia Magazine of History and Biography"

A useful addition to libraries of readers with a particular interest in the history of colonial or eighteenth-century British science or art.

"Journal of Southern History"

This book will find an important place in any library.

"William and Mary Quarterly"

From the Publisher