Behold the Promised Land: A History of Afro-American Settler Society in Nineteenth-Century Liberia

Two early nineteenth century texts treating the production and use of wax models of fruit reveal the history of these objects in the context of courtly decoration. Both sources emphasise the models' decorative qualities and their suitability for display, properties which were not simply by-products of the realism that the use of wax allowed. Thus, such models were not regarded merely as visual aids for educational purposes. The artists who created them sought to entice collectors of art and natural history objects, as well as teachers and scientists. Wax models of fruits are known to have been collected and displayed as early as the seventeenth century, although only one such collection is extant. Before the early nineteenth century models of fruits made from wax or other materials (glass, marble, faience) were considered worthy of display because contemporaries attached great importance to mastery of the cultivation and grafting of fruit trees. This skill could only be demonstrated by actually showing the fruits themselves. Therefore, wax models made before the early nineteenth century may also be regarded as attempts to preserve natural products beyond the point of decay.

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Adam Zalužanský’s “De sexu plantarum” (1592): an early pioneering chapter on plant sexuality

Archives of Natural History ◽

10.3366/anh.2013.0171 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 40 (2) ◽

pp. 244-256 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Holger Funk

Keyword(s):

Nineteenth Century ◽

English Translation ◽

History Of Botany ◽

Main Work ◽

Botanical History ◽

History Of ◽

The University ◽

First Time

In the history of botany, Adam Zalužanský (d. 1613), a Bohemian physician, apothecary, botanist and professor at the University of Prague, is a little-known personality. Linnaeus's first biographers, for example, only knew Zalužanský from hearsay and suspected he was a native of Poland. This ignorance still pervades botanical history. Zalužanský is mentioned only peripherally or not at all. As late as the nineteenth century, a researcher would be unaware that Zalužanský’s main work Methodi herbariae libri tres actually existed in two editions from two different publishers (1592, Prague; 1604, Frankfurt). This paper introduces the life and work of Zalužanský. Special attention is paid to the chapter “De sexu plantarum” of Zalužanský’s Methodus, in which, more than one hundred years before the well-known De sexu plantarum epistola of R. J. Camerarius, the sexuality of plants is suggested. Additionally, for the first time, an English translation of Zalužanský’s chapter on plant sexuality is provided.

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Correspondence between Adolphe Brongniart and Robert Schomburgk: trading natural history collections for honours

Archives of Natural History ◽

10.3366/anh.2002.29.3.333 ◽

2002 ◽

Vol 29 (3) ◽

pp. 333-336

Author(s):

PIOTR DASZKIEWICZ ◽

MICHEL JEGU

Keyword(s):

Nineteenth Century ◽

Natural History ◽

Dominican Republic ◽

Southeast Asia ◽

Herbarium Specimens ◽

British Guiana ◽

Natural History Collections ◽

History Of ◽

Source Of Information ◽

German Naturalist

ABSTRACT: This paper discusses some correspondence between Robert Schomburgk (1804–1865) and Adolphe Brongniart (1801–1876). Four letters survive, containing information about the history of Schomburgk's collection of fishes and plants from British Guiana, and his herbarium specimens from Dominican Republic and southeast Asia. A study of these letters has enabled us to confirm that Schomburgk supplied the collection of fishes from Guiana now in the Laboratoire d'Ichtyologie, Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris. The letters of the German naturalist are an interesting source of information concerning the practice of sale and exchange of natural history collections in the nineteenth century in return for honours.

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