London
17/10/2011
I made it to the London Natural History Museum, via the District Line Underground. I actually got off the train a bit early and had to walk further than I remembered from last time (on the way back I discovered another entrance/exit to the Underground Station through a long pedestrian underpass that came out very close to the NHM, memory does funny things). It is viciously cold now, the walk was not pleasant.
Inside the Museum was not that much better however the welcome was warm and friendly so I settled down to work quickly. Bauer's botany drawings/paintings were superb; as expected because he was put on the voyage by Sir Joseph Banks for that purpose. The archive staff had got out the published catalogue for me so I could go through selecting the Queensland species/paintings. I got through two boxes of large-format water-colour paintings and took photographs of three species of plants.
I also went through the catalogue notes and the drawing/plate listings, which took a while. At least they are in modern English, not archaic hand-written French. I ran a computer search for the online version of the Catalogue but I found everything except the Catalogue. I will try for photocopies of the pages I need.
The list of paintings I wanted to see caused a bit of a ruffle but when I explained I was here for a couple of weeks (i.e., a couple of boxes a day) then it was seen as more reasonable. I need about 25-30 photos to cover the range of Queensland species and locations noted in the Catalogue.
All up a pretty good start to the visit. I have heard nothing back from the MOD Academy so I may miss that one. If I can organise an alternate look at the Westall "Bowen Harbour" image (? published photographs) I will be happy. The botany images from Bauer have reasonable location information on them so I can track where they were made ("collected", then drawn on the boat or back in London post-voyage). Very few habit sketches of "trees", simply the leaves seeds flowers etc.
[In terms of logistics, I got the heat turned on for my Barking Hotel room, but now it is over heated!]
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