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Add MS 5220
- Record Id:
- 032-003434699
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-003434699
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100071693029.0x000001
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100186455026.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Add MS 5220
- Title:
- ‘Drawings of animals, monsters, skeletons, etc.’ from the collection of Sir Hans Sloane, by different hands
- Scope & Content:
-
Album of drawings by miscellaneous hands and of differing origin and date.
The pages are not numbered. The drawings are listed as numbered items in pencil (1928). Folio number refers to the digital foliation.
[f. 1]
1. Drawings of fish; pen, ink and wash; signed bottom right ‘HG fecit’; Inscribed: These Fish & sevll more (but not so remarkable & odd) were brought to sell in a canow by ye Mallayans wn we was [sic] entered ye rivers mouths – I drew ym as near as I could of their reall sizes….’ and inscribed with further descriptions around the other drawings on the page.
2. Drawing of an object, possibly a float or weight; pen, ink and wash; Inscribed: ‘Tab III’
[f. 2]
3 Several fish, with a large cod in the centre; Etched with grey wash border; Signed ‘TI fecit’; After Adriaan Collaert’s print of five fish from his series Piscium vivae icones.
4-6: Drawings of ‘Unicorne fish’, ‘Abacatuaia’ and ‘porpus’; pen and wash; Signed ‘H.G. fecit’; inscribed with descriptions.
[f. 3]
7-8: Insects against a very dark background; Oil on vellum.
9: Drawing of a scorpion; Watercolour and bodycolour on vellum.
10: Drawing of a millipede; Watercolour.
11: Drawing of a spider; Watercolour and bodycolour.
12: A slip of paper inscribed: This bird of the Pufing & Penguin kind is drawn of its natural bigness it was taken on the Coast of England it is undescribed and the least of that female of birds I have met with: Geo. Edwards, 1742.’ There is no corresponding image in this album but it may be in one of Sloane’s albums of drawings of birds BL Add Ms 5263 or 5264.
[f. 4, 5]
13-14: Profile and frontal view of the skeleton of an elephant (Hansken) in the Museum of the Grand Duke of Tuscany; Graphite, pen and wash; Inscribed: ‘Elephantis Sceleton, in Musae M. D. Etrunae’ and ‘Elephantis Anterior facies’. This is the lectotype of Elephas maximusLinnaeus 1958.
[f. 6]
15: Dissected tongue of a chameleon with pins, in graphite. Inscribed in pencil: ‘Lingua Cameleontis’ (tongue of a chameleon).
[f. 7]
16: A Monster killed in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem; a scaled creature with talons, wings and horns en passant; In pen and ink. Part of hand-written copy of a broadside entitled: ‘The pourtraiture of a wild Monster kill’d in the Neighbour-hood of Ieru’slem November the 15th 1725’ with a long description of the beast, continuing on the verso.
[f. 8]
17: A skull of a tiger and a skull of a cat; oil on paper, on brown paper; Inscribed on the verso, in ink: ‘Cranium Tigridis’, ‘Cranium felis’.
[f. 9-10]
18-21: Four drawings of Rhinoceros horns; one on each sheet, in watercolour and bodycolour on grey paper; One of them possibly drawn from a horn cup in the British Museum, OA+.7144
[f. 11]
22: A cock with three legs eating feed and defecating through two anuses; Watercolour over graphite; Inscribed in ink: ‘A Cock with 3 leggs and 2 arses and by both he dungeth’.
[f. 12]
23: A dog with five legs; Graphite, pen and wash; probably by the same artist as no. 25 below; Inscribed in pencil: ‘a dog with 5 legs bread in England of the common size’.
24: A double-headed cat; Ink with blue wash and background, hatching in graphite.
25: A ram with six legs; Graphite, pen and wash; probably by the same artist as number 23 above; Inscribed in pencil: ‘a ram with six legs bread in England’.
[f. 13 and 13a]
26 -27: A lamb with two bodies and one head, depicted from the front and back; Watercolour; possibly by George Edwards.
[f. 14, 14a, 14b]
28: A lamb with six legs eating vegetation; Watercolour; Possibly by George Edwards; Inscription in ink: ‘The cornish lamb with 6 leggs’; Verso: rough sketches of a bull; graphite.
29: A study of the head of a monstrous calf; Graphite and red chalk; By Cromwell Mortimer; Keyed with letters and legend below; Inscribed at the top, in ink: ‘The monstrous head of an abortive calf resembling the head of a sheep, Anno 1732’; Signed bottom right in pencil, ‘C[romwell] Mortimer delin.’; Verso: rough sketch of life study of a male figure, from behind; Graphite.
[f. 15]
30: A study of the head of an elk with mis-formed antlers; Graphite and watercolour; Possibly by George Edwards; Inscribed with its size, in ink: ‘3 foot 10 inches wide; 3 foot 2 inches and half high’.
31: A head of an antelope with a large tear duct; Ink and grey wash; Keyed with the letter A.; Verso: further sketches of the head; Pencil.
[f. 16]
32: A skeleton of a weasel; Watercolour.
33: A dissected lizard, with pins; Graphite and watercolour.
[f. 17]
34: A bear in profile surrounded by plants and a tree; Cut paper, glued on a purple/brown paper.
[f. 18]
35: A Kamchatkan dog; Oil on paper.
[f. 19]
36: A Coatimundi; chalks on brown paper.
[f. 20]
37: An elephant in profile; Graphite with watercolour, framed with black paint, and surrounded with nature prints; Inscribed above with the date 1550, a monogram and inscription, and inscribed below with a motto in capital letters; Verso: a print of a temple, from Jacques Androuet du Cerceau's "Temples à la manière antique" c. 1550 glued on, and surrounded by nature prints.
[f. 21]
38: A study of a wolf (?), more probably a hyena; Red and black chalk with highlights in white.
[f. 22]
39: A figure of a wolf (?), more proabably a hyena; double-line border, in ink and wash; Inscribed in ink: ‘A young wolfe female, about [blank] moneths old it is sent alive by this ship’.
40: Extremity of an elephant’s tail; watercolour and bodycolour.
[f. 23]
41: Study of a racoon, standing on ground with grass, wearing a collar and ribbon; in red chalk.
[f. 24]
42: A rabbit; Pen and graphite, possibly varnished.
43 [28]: Study of a monkey on a man’s shoulder in profile, and a further study of its face; Printed in the ‘crayon manner’ in red and black ink by Arthur Pond (1701-1758); Signed: Ann: Carracci del. APond fecit 1736’. The inscription underneath reads: ‘Viro Hon.to Hans Sloane, Bar.to Regiae Societatis Praesidi, Medico Regio Archetypi, e Musaeo ipsius rarioribus Naturae Artiumque speciminibus insignissimo, desumpti suam hanc descriptionem humillime dedicat. Art. Pond.’ (To the honourable Hans Sloane, Baronet, President of the Royal Society and Physician to the King, I Arthur Pond most humbly dedicate this picture of his, chosen from the rarest objects in nature and art in the most renowned museum)
Digitisation and cataloguing funded by the Master and Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Additional Manuscripts
Sloane Collection - Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "032-003434699", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Add MS 5220: ‘Drawings of animals, monsters, skeletons, etc.’ from the collection of Sir Hans Sloane, by different hands" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-003434699
- Is part of:
- not applicable
- Hierarchy:
- 032-003434699
- Container:
- not applicable
- Record Type (Level):
- Fonds
- Extent:
- 1 volume (42 drawings)
- Digitised Content:
- https://iiif.bl.uk/uv/#?manifest=https://bl.digirati.io/iiif/ark:/81055/vdc_100186455026.0x000001
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- English
Latin - Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1500
- End Date:
- 1799
- Date Range:
- 16th century-18th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Material: paper
Dimensions: approximately 575 x 440 mm
Foliation: pages are foliated or numbered. Individual drawings have been numbered.
Binding: brown leather
- Custodial History:
- The manuscripts of Sir Hans Sloane were purchased at his death from his executors by the Act of Parliament which established the British Museum in 1753.
- Former Internal References:
- Sloane MS 5220
- Source of Acquisition:
- The Sloane Manuscripts were held by the British Museum Department of Manuscripts until 1973 after which they were transferred to the British Library.
- Arrangement:
- The drawings in this volume were arranged and rearranged at various times.
- Finding Aids:
-
British Museum Department of Manuscripts, Index to the Additional Manuscripts, with those of the Egerton Collection, Preserved in the British Museum, and acquired in the years 1783-1835, London 1849.
Entry in the Catalogue of Additional Manuscripts Nos 5137-5407, Volume 21, ff 264-266, reference 5220, available in the Manuscripts Reading Room, where the volume is described: ‘Drawings of Animals, Monsters, Skeletons &c. Large folio’.
Sloane’s handwritten catalogues to his library can be found at Sloane MS 3972 A-D.
- Publications:
-
Items 13-14: E. Cappellini, A. Gentry, E. Palkopoulou, Y. Ishida, D. Cram, A. Roos, M. Watson, U. S. Johansson, B. Fernholm, P. Agnelli, F. Barbagli, D. T. Littlewood, C. D. Kelstrup, J. V. Olsen, A. M. Lister, A. L. Roca, L. Dalén, and M. T. Gilbert, 'Type Material of Elephas Maximus', Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 170 (2014), 222-32. https://doi.org/10.1111/zoj.12084.
Item 16: The image and inscription are related to an original Italian broadside, for which see the German version in British Museum P&D 1880,0710.888 (also catalogued in Ingrid Faust, Zoologische Einblattdrucke und Flugschriften vor 1800, (Stuttgart: A. Hiersemann, 2003, vol. 5, cat.no. 799.)
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)
- Notes:
- Contributors to this catalogue: Charlie Jarvis, Sachiko Kusukawa, Arthur MacGregor, Kim Sloan.