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I, 1 he Banksian Artists. 
Banks was a munificent patron of artists. He wisely resolved that 
artists were a necessary part of expeditions of discovery, as necessary 
as the scientific and recording staff. Accordingly he took with him 
no less than three artists on the “ Endeavour,” and secured the 
appointment of competent artists on other expeditions. 
The following enlightened sentiments, taken from the second codicil 
to his wdll, express his views that an artist is a necessary officer of a 
botanic garden : — 
Deeply impressed by an opinion which I still continue to hold, and believe 
to be founded in truth, that the estabhshinent of a botanic garden cannot be 
compleat unless a resident draughtsman to be constantly employed in making 
sketches and finished drawings of all new plants that perfect their flowers and 
fruits in it be a part thereof. .... 
Following is a statement of the botanical and other drawings 
accumulated by Banks : — 
Of drawings there are, first, both those of plants and animals made by the 
natural history draughtsman employed by Sir Joseph Banks, in Cook’s first 
voyage, amounting to 1,163; and of Cook’s second voyage, a smaller number — 
301, made by the younger Forster, the assistant-naturahst in that voyage. A 
volume of drawings — forty-eight in number — by the late ilr. Francis Bauer, 
illustrating the structure and diseases of wheat. ^Miscellaneous finished drawings 
and sketches of the same artist, chiefly of the more remarkable plants which had 
flowered in the Royal Gardens at Kew during half a century — that is, from the 
date of Mr. Bauer’s connection with that estabhshinent in 1789 to the time of 
his death in 1840, amounting to 1,484; all of which were made at the expense 
of Sir Joseph Banks. A collection of finished drawings of Xew Holland plants, 
203 in number, made during the voyage of Captain Fhnders, by the late Mr. 
FercUnand Bauer, who was employed as natural history painter in that voyage. 
A volume containing 510 drawings and sketches by Ehret, the most celebrated 
botanical painter of his time, chiefly of plants which had flowered in the gardens 
in the vicinity of London, about the middle of the last century; and a considerable 
collection of drawings of Guiana plants by Sir Robert Schomburgk. Besides all 
these, there are other botanical drawings of various artists and different periods, 
most of them of less importance than the foregoing, but altogether amounting to 
4,660. The collection of drawings forms a highly interesting series, from the 
earliest and rudest attempts at dehneation of plants in the 15th century, to the 
finished drawings of the two brothers — Francis and Ferdinand Bauer, which for 
beauty, accuracy, and completeness of details, are unequalled in this or any other 
country in Europe. The engraved copperplates mentioned in Sir Joseph Banks’ 
will, and which are still unpubUshed, are of plants found by Sir Joseph Banks in 
Cook’s first voyage, amounting to 743, and a smaller number of plants observed 
by Forster, in Cook’s second voyage, the drawings of both series having been 
made in those two expeditions.* 
• Robert Brown’s evidence before the Royal Commission on the British Museum, 1847-8. 
