21/10/2011 London NHM

London
21/10/2011 Friday

I read Angus McColl's blog with a degree of horror. My greatest fear is being targeted by professional crims and that appears to be what happened to Angus. My "trauma" regarding leaving my pack at the Brussels EuroStar immigration booth pales into insignificance. I got my gear back in 5-10 mins and no crims were involved, just my own stupidity. My paranoia is back big-time!

Today I finished going through all the Bauer botanical drawing boxes at the NHM (London) library/archive, taking photographs of a total of 52 Queensland species of plants sampled during the 1801-05 Mathew Flinders voyage to Australia. I actually feel honoured to have been able to see "and hold" these paintings, which are at least 200 years old and in pristine condition. The pigments are bright and the lines unblurred; sharp, crisp and photo-realistic. I can not wait to take comparison colour photographs of some of these species when I get back to Cairns.

My decision to spend my remaining time in London on the NHM Bauer collection has been justified. His scientific illustration is really superb and the "artwork" genuinely beautiful. Most satisfying weeks work.

I signed the copyright agreement (no commercial publishing / no publishing other than in my thesis) and got a list of staff who assisted to include in my acknowledgement. I said my thankyous and goodbyes but I have booked to go back next Wed for half a day to do a lit search. Just in case there is something I missed.

Tomorrow (Saturday) I travel into the British Library for lunch with Sarah Thomas. I also have to sort out my travel for Monday to have lunch with James Taylor. Then on Tuesday I have to get to WhiteHall and Admiralty House. Wed for the NHM if needed with Thursday for packing and any last minute stuff. Friday is my major travel day.

I will get to see the last of the Westall paintings on Tues (25th) and that is the last of the "data gathering" for this field trip. At this point I am reasonably happy that I have enough for a project/thesis. I still need to review what images I have but I am confident I can make a pretty good story out of this collection.