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Object Timeline

1917	We acquired this object.
2015	We photographed this object.
2024	You found it! We photographed this object.

Drawing, Botanical Sketches

This is a Drawing. It was created by Frederic Edwin Church. It is dated 1853 or 1857 and we acquired it in 1917. Its medium is graphite on grey laid paper. It is a part of the Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design department.

This object was donated by Louis P. Church. It is credited Gift of Louis P. Church.

Printed on grey toned paper, black and grey illustrations of fruit and nut trees cover the paper. Each illustration is labeled as a figure with a number notation for reference. Detailed depictions of leaves, walnuts, cacti, and various other botany are included.

Plate 71, Iconographic encyclopaedia of science, literature, and art. /...
printed paper.
Smithsonian Libraries.
23.2018.4

This illustration has a framing rectangle of a realistic banana and its anatomical growth stages and parts numbered but unordered. A full illustration of a ripe, unpeeled banana has green on either ends and takes up most of the left side of the frame. To its right on the top of the frame, is a black and white and yellow illustration of one end of a banana with parts of a flower emerging from the top, and the written number 2 next to it. On the right of that is an illustration with a number 1, showing a misshapen banana with petals and flowers emerging from the top. Underneath that are two black and white illustrations, 3 and 4, of the flowers stylus and pistil (3) and the stylus open (4). At the bottom are illustrations number 5 and 7: 5 is small unripened bottom of banana, cut across the top, revealing a seed formation in the middle. On the right is 7: a color drawing of a ripened banana cut across the top in the same manner, showing a progressed seed formation in the center. To the left of the full banana illustration, is a black and white a black and white illustration numbered 8, showing roots and new growth. Outside of the rectangular frame, there is text at the top reads '54 bis,' and the text at the bottom reads 'BANANIER' in all caps, with a small signature on the bottom right of the framing rectangle.

Bananier, Plate 54, Flore Médicale, 1814
printed paper.
Smithsonian Libraries.
23.2018.3

Emerging from a long straight stem, slender green leaves hang vertically downward from the center and droop around the stem. Above them, white curling petals dance in bloom. Unlike most petals, these long white petals are shaped like a bean but are open, and at their top, taper from thin curl into what looks like another petal entirely, but is in fact an attached leaf-shape, light yellow in color. It is as if another petal grew out of the white bean petal, but are all attached as a unit. From the center, long, straight styli stick out and transition from a dark maroon to a pink to white.

Model, Theobroma Cacao
wood, papier-mâché, cardboard, plaster, reed pith, metal, string, feathers,....
Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.
22.2018.13

Its dimensions are

21.5 × 28 cm (8 7/16 in. × 11 in.)

It has the following markings

Stamped: in black ink, verso center, L.457d

It is inscribed

Inscribed: in graphite, upper left: Wild Plantain / 3 - dead leaves / 3 3; in graphite, center left: Memoranda The large / leaved plants and trees of the / Tropics constantly change / by their foliage renewing above, the old dropping down; in graphite, center right: Palma / da vino; in graphite, lower center: Tiles / flat; in graphite, lower right: Hat with bright / red cover [struckout: to his hat] / blue cloak

Cite this object as

Drawing, Botanical Sketches; Frederic Edwin Church (American, 1826–1900); USA; graphite on grey laid paper; 21.5 × 28 cm (8 7/16 in. × 11 in.); Gift of Louis P. Church; 1917-4-869-c

Short URL http://cprhw.tt/o/2BhY2/
Accession Number 1917-4-869-c
Object ID 18202489