Jones's Icones contains finely delineated paintings of more than 760 species of Lepidoptera, many of which it described for the first time, marking a critical moment in the study of natural history. With Iconotypes Jones's seminal work is published for the first time, accompanied by expert commentary and contextual essays, and featuring annotated maps showing the location of each species. Jones painted the species between the early 1780s and 1800, drawing from his own collection and the collections of Joseph Banks, Dru Drury, Sir James Edward Smith, John Francillon, the British Museum and the Linnean Society. For every specimen painting he provided a species name, the collection from which it was taken and the geographical location in which it was found. In 1787, during a visit to London, the Danish scientist Johann Christian Fabricius studied Jones's paintings and based 231 species of butterfly and moths on them. In this enhanced facsimile, Jones's references to historic references are clarified and modern taxonomic names are provided, together with notes on which paintings serve as iconotypes. Contextual commentary by specialist entomologist Richard I. Vane-Wright gives an account of Jones's life and his motivation for collecting butterflies and creating the Icones, and evaluates the significance of his work. Interspersed at intervals between the pages of Jones's paintings are modern maps showing the location of each species painted, and expert essays on the development of lepidoptery and taxonomy after Linneaus, and the roles of collectors and natural history artists from the late 1700s to mid-1800s. With 1600 illustrations in colour In partnership with Oxford University Museum of Natural History

The first publication of Jones's Icones, a strikingly beautiful and significant achievement in natural history. William Jones's Icones is one of the most scientifically important and visually stunning works on butterflies and moths ever created. Icones contains finely delineated paintings of more than 760 species of Lepidoptera, many of which it described for the first time, marking a critical moment in the study of natural history. Yet until now, it has never been published--the only existing manuscript copy is housed in the archives of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. With Iconotypes, Jones's work is published for the first time, accompanied by expert commentary and contextual essays, and featuring annotated maps showing where each specimen was discovered. Between the early 1780s and 1810, Jones, a wine merchant, painted in painstaking detail hundreds of species of Lepidoptera, drawing from his own collection and the collections of prominent amateur naturalists. For every specimen, Jones included the known species name, the collection, and the geographical location in which it was found. In this enhanced facsimile, entomologist Dick Vane-Wright provides context for the historical references in the original, updates the taxonomic and common names, and includes information about species that have since gone extinct. Vane-Wright also provides an account of Jones's life and his motivation for collecting butterflies, evaluating the significance of Jones's work. This lavish volume intersperses contemporary maps showing the locations of each specimen, expert essays on the study of lepidoptery since Ancient Egyptian times, the development of taxonomy after Linnaeus, the roles of collectors and natural history artists during the late 1700s to mid-1800s, and the steep decline of butterflies and moths over the last fifty years. Iconotypes is a beautiful collector's object for fans of natural history and illustrations of butterflies and moths, as well as artists, designers, and bibliophiles.

Over the course of numerous voyages to Africa's Omo Valley, Hans Silvester became fascinated by the beauty of the Surma, Mursi, Hamer and Kurma tribes, who share a taste for body painting and extravagant decorations borrowed from nature. This collection of photographs captures these accoutrements.

This fully realized colour catalogue includes elegant contemporary illustrations of every animal, plant or mineral cited in Syme's edition of “Werner's nomenclature of colours”

From Classical times to the 19th century, the great quest to discover and define the intoxicating diversity of the natural world attracted a host of intrepid thinkers and explorers. Aristotle and Linnaeus set out to classify nature; Joseph Banks and von Humboldt made perilous journeys to collect and record it. Antony van Leeuwenhoek discovered bacteria with a homemade microscope and James Hutton revealed the immense age of the Earth. Mary Anning hunted fossils; others insects, birds and plants. Georges Cuvier pondered extinction, and Charles Darwin proclaimed the origin of species. With their radical thinking and commitment to close observation, these pioneers laid foundations for the specialist scientists of today. Here thirty-nine of them are brought vividly to life by an array of experts, with illustrations from the unmatched archive of the Natural History Museum, London.

The first survey of its kind to explore contemporary art that focuses on ecology From land art and earthworks in the 1960s to conceptual art of the new millennium, ecology-focused art has been a prominent genre in the art world for decades. This book offers a look into the recent explosion in contemporary art that deals directly with nature, the environment, climate change, and ecology. Organized into six thematic chapters, Art & Ecology Now moves through the various levels of artists’ engagement, from those who document and reflect on nature, to those who use the physical environment as the raw material for their art, and committed activists who set out to make art that transforms both our attitudes and our habits. More than 300 color illustrations feature the work of over 90 artists, including Allora & Calzadilla, Edward Burtynsky, Tue Greenfort, Hans Haacke, Eva Jospin, Nadav Kander, Yao Lu, David Maisel, Gustav Metzger, Svetlana Ostapovici, Nyaba Leon Ouedraogo, Berndnaut Smilde, and more.

Recording the world of plant and animal life and documenting the strange beauty of the natural world have been human passions ever since the first cave paintings. While there are many histories of botanical art featuring beautiful paintings and finished drawings, the artists' preparatory sketches, first impressions, and scribbled notes on paper are rarely seen. But it is often these early attempts that give us real insight into the firsthand experiences and adventures of the botanists, artists, collectors, and explorers behind them. This exquisite visual compendium of botanical sketches by eighty artists from around the world brings these personal and vividly spontaneous records back into the light. Filled with remarkable images from the fifteenth to the twentieth centuries, sourced from the unparalleled collections of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew Library, Art & Archives, and other libraries, museums, and archives, Botanical Sketchbooks also provides fascinating biographical portraits of the intriguing characters featured within, including such renowned artists, scientists, and amateur botanists as Leonardo da Vinci, Georg Dionysius Ehret, Carl Linnaeus, Maria Sibylla Merian, Mark Catesby, and Helen and Margaret Shelley (sisters of the novelist Mary Shelley), among many others.