Artist/Maker

Catesby, Mark

Place Made

Date Made

1815

Medium

ink and watercolor on paper

Dimensions

HOA: 21″; WOA: 28 1/4″

Accession Number

5474

Description

This map is an 1815 printing of the map that accompanied Mark Catesby’s two-volume “Natural History of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands” the first volume of which appeared in 1731 and the second in 1743. This map was intended to geographically contextualize the flora and fauna depicted throughout the work. The geography itself is largely based on the relevant parts of Henry Popple’s monumental “A Map of the British Empire…” published in 1733.

Catesby’s work went through two editions in the eighteenth century and was again published in the nineteenth century. This copy was struck to accompany the 1815 edition.

RELATED WORKS: “Natural History of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands” by Mark Catesby (1012.1-2). MESDA’s copy is a hybrid of second-edition text (published in 1771) with third-edition (printed in 1815) prints.

DESCRIPTION: A map of part of Virginia, the Carolina, Florida, Louisiana, Jucatan, and the Bahama Islands with original blue, green, pink, yellow, and brown color. The cartouche in the upper right corner is composed of sea shells and sea weed with inscription “A MAP OF/CAROLINA, FLORIDA/AND THE/BAHAMA ISLANDS/with the Adjacent Parts.”

History

Originally bound into the second volume of the 1815 edition of Mark Catesby’s “Natural History of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands.”

Artist Biography

ARTIST: Catesby, Mark (c.1679-1749). English naturalist and etcher. Catesby made two visits to America, spending the years 1712 to 1719 with relatives in Virginia and on the second trip, 1722-1725, traveling through the Carolina, Georgia, and Florida and spending some time in the Bahamas before returning to England in 1726. The result of his American residences was the important Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands (London, 1731-1743), for which Catesby etched upward of 100 plates, the first set of which he also colored himself. In recognition of his scientific work Catesby was elected to the Royal Society in 1733. A posthumously published volume, Hortus Britanno-Americanus, also contained a number of Catesby’s etchings of American trees and shrubs, many of which he had himself introduced to English horticulturalists. He died in London, December 23, 1749. (p. 115, Groce & Wallace, The New-York Historical Society’s Dictionary of Artist in America)

Credit Line

MESDA Purchase fund