A variant issue of Mark Catesby’s Natural history of Carolina (volume 1, issued 1729–1732) given to John Bartram

Abstract

A copy of the first volume of Mark Catesby’s Natural history of Carolina which came to light in the 1980s, now in the Joseph F. Cullman 3rd Library of Natural History at the Smithsonian Libraries and Archives, Washington, DC, has unique significance as an abandoned and previously unknown issue, a variant formatted quite differently from the standard copies of Catesby’s book. Numerous physical features, including calligraphic trials in pen and ink, copied outlines of parts of the etched images in graphite, pencil identifications and annotations, and evidence of burning consistent with other items in the Bartram collections, allow the identification of this copy of the Natural History with the one that Catesby mentions in his letters as having been given to his friend the Philadelphia botanist and collector, John Bartram. From these features it would appear that the copy was used by John’s son, William, as a copybook for teaching himself ornithological drawing and as a reference book for his own scientific study. The sensitive and transparent hand-colouring of the plates which allows the etched lines to remain legible strongly suggests that the copy was hand-coloured by Catesby himself. The presence of brush trials and paint daubs further suggests the possibility of the volume having been used as an exemplar or a set of pattern plates for Catesby’s colourers, while the possibility that William Bartram used it for matching colours while making his own natural history drawings must also be kept open. The authors aim to draw attention to several different explanations for the unusual features of this volume, while acknowledging that many questions remain unanswered.