Sydney Parkinson
Sydney Parkinson (c. 1745 – 26 January 1771) was a Scottish Quaker, botanical illustrator and natural history artist.
Parkinson was employed by Joseph Banks to travel with him on James Cook's first voyage to the Pacific in 1768,[1] in HMS Endeavour. Parkinson made nearly a thousand drawings of plants and animals collected by Banks and Daniel Solander on the voyage. He had to work in difficult conditions, living and working in a small cabin surrounded by hundreds of specimens. In Tahiti he was plagued by swarms of flies which ate the paint as he worked. He died at sea on the way to Cape Town of dysentery contracted at Princes' Island off the western end of Java. Banks paid his outstanding salary to his brother.
Parkinson is commemorated in the common and scientific name of the Parkinson's petrel Procellaria parkinsoni. The great Florilegium of his work was finally published in 1988 by Alecto Historical Editions in 35 volumes and has since been digitized by the Natural History Museum in London.
Sydney Parkinson, botanical draughtsman on Cook's first voyage, died before returning to London, and his papers found their way to the library of Joseph Banks. Parkinson's brother, Stanfield, eventually obtained the papers, after a bitter public quarrel and court battle with Banks and Hawkesworth, and put out this magnificent book. Since it went to a second edition, it is likely that Stanfield made some money from the venture, and ultimately ensured that Sydney Parkinson's depictions of Australia and New Zealand became well-known treasures.
Ficus Parkinsonii was the name given to a type of Australian fig, which today is known by the trinomial moniker Ficus superba var. henneana.
The specimen above was collected by the naturalist Joseph Banks on a brief visit to Booby Island together with Captain James Cook on 23 August 1770.
With preparations beginning for the journey back to England after more than four months in ‘New Holland’, this was the same day Cook noted in his journal that the “dangers and fatigues of the voyage” were “drawing near to an end.”
After painstakingly charting the previously unmapped northern coastline of Terra Australis Incognita, he was also content to declare that “New-Holland and New-Guinea are two Seperate Lands or Islands, which until this day hath been a doubtfull point with Geographers.”
Endeavour botanical illustrations, Banks' Florilegium, Mrs Morgan's Florilegium,
He named one of the nearby islands ‘Prince of Wales’s Island’ and another ‘Possession Island’ and christened the stretch of water between them that marked the beginning of his ship’s return journey ‘Endeavours Straight’.
As for the plant, it was named after the artist Banks had employed to illustrate the incredible variety of previously undiscovered botanical specimens he and his assistants collected during the course of the round-the-world voyage.
Sydney Parkinson (right) completed 280 finished and botanically accurate paintings, and over 900 sketches and drawings over the course of the expedition. Sadly, he died on the way back and never got the chance to see the final results of his labours.
The picture above, based on one of his sketches, was later completed by Frederick Polydore Nodder, who helped prepare the Banks’ Florilegium – a compendium of all the new plant species named and described by the naturalist during the Endeavour’s circumnavigation.
Parkinson was among the men who succumbed to malaria and dysentery contracted during the next stopover, an ultimately disastrous three-month stay in Java, which claimed the lives of 24 members of the crew.
Sydney Parkinson, Endeavour botanical illustrations, Mrs Morgan's Florilegium, Natalie Waddell,Cook noted shortly after arriving at the island that he had “not one man upon the sick list” but among the first to succumb to ‘Batavia fever’ was the ship’s surgeon himself, William Monkhouse. “Several of our people are daly taken ill which will make his loss be the more severly felt,” the captain wrote.
It was after leaving Java, on 26 January 1771, that Parkinson died. Just a few days before him another one of Banks’ assistants, the Finnish botanist and instrument maker Herman Spöring, fell victim to the “putrid fever”, as the artist described it in his account of Batavia – one of the last and lengthiest entries in his journal.
The specimen above was collected by the naturalist Joseph Banks on a brief visit to Booby Island together with Captain James Cook on 23 August 1770.
With preparations beginning for the journey back to England after more than four months in ‘New Holland’, this was the same day Cook noted in his journal that the “dangers and fatigues of the voyage” were “drawing near to an end.”
After painstakingly charting the previously unmapped northern coastline of Terra Australis Incognita, he was also content to declare that “New-Holland and New-Guinea are two Seperate Lands or Islands, which until this day hath been a doubtfull point with Geographers.”
Endeavour botanical illustrations, Banks' Florilegium, Mrs Morgan's Florilegium,
He named one of the nearby islands ‘Prince of Wales’s Island’ and another ‘Possession Island’ and christened the stretch of water between them that marked the beginning of his ship’s return journey ‘Endeavours Straight’.
As for the plant, it was named after the artist Banks had employed to illustrate the incredible variety of previously undiscovered botanical specimens he and his assistants collected during the course of the round-the-world voyage.
Sydney Parkinson (right) completed 280 finished and botanically accurate paintings, and over 900 sketches and drawings over the course of the expedition. Sadly, he died on the way back and never got the chance to see the final results of his labours.
The picture above, based on one of his sketches, was later completed by Frederick Polydore Nodder, who helped prepare the Banks’ Florilegium – a compendium of all the new plant species named and described by the naturalist during the Endeavour’s circumnavigation.
Parkinson was among the men who succumbed to malaria and dysentery contracted during the next stopover, an ultimately disastrous three-month stay in Java, which claimed the lives of 24 members of the crew.
Sydney Parkinson, Endeavour botanical illustrations, Mrs Morgan's Florilegium, Natalie Waddell,Cook noted shortly after arriving at the island that he had “not one man upon the sick list” but among the first to succumb to ‘Batavia fever’ was the ship’s surgeon himself, William Monkhouse. “Several of our people are daly taken ill which will make his loss be the more severly felt,” the captain wrote.
It was after leaving Java, on 26 January 1771, that Parkinson died. Just a few days before him another one of Banks’ assistants, the Finnish botanist and instrument maker Herman Spöring, fell victim to the “putrid fever”, as the artist described it in his account of Batavia – one of the last and lengthiest entries in his journal.
This illustration of the Deplanchea tetraphylla, commonly known as the Golden Bouquet
Tillandsia geminiflora published as Tillandsia argentea (left) and Tillandsia stricta (right), drawings by S. Parkinson
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