In 1788, nearly 1500 people on 11 sailing ships came ashore at Port Jackson in Western Australia after a grueling four month journey from England. This collection of vessels later became known as the First Fleet. This book is a captivating collection of watercolours, washes, ink and pencil drawings created during this historic time.

Online exhibitions of drawings by First Fleet artists; under the heading 'Ethnography', includes 69 drawings of Aboriginal people and life in the Sydney area.

In 1788, the First Fleet landed in New South Wales, and European settlement in Australia began. Among those on board the eleven ships of the fleet were artists who recorded their impressions of the land, its indigenous people, its flora and fauna, and incidents or events which they considered significant.

Parrots and lorikeets swoop down, vivid, bright and colourful. Black swans glide through the air. Owls stare out from pages, wide-eyed. A sense of awe swept through natural history circles in eighteenth-century London when the first ships returned from Sydney with their cargo of exotic animals, birds and plants – and striking watercolour illustrations. The sudden emergence, in 2011, of a large number of these watercolour illustrations has revealed much about the early years of the colony. In Natural Curiosity, Louise Anemaat uncovers never-before-published works from the artists of the First Fleet, including convicts-turned-watercolourists Thomas Watling and John Doody, and the anonymous 'Port Jackson Painter'. She unravels the complex network of natural history collectors who spanned the globe – eagerly acquiring, copying and exchanging these artworks – from New South Wales Surgeon-General John White to passionate British collector Aylmer Bourke Lambert.

In 1788, nearly 1,500 people on 11 sailing ships came ashore at Port Jackson in Australia after a gruelling four month journey from England. This collection of vessels later became known as the First Fleet, and those who sailed in them were the community who established the first penal colony in New South Wales and who laid the foundations for the birth of the nation of Australia. The Art of the First Fleet is a captivating collection of watercolours, washes, ink and pencil drawings created during this historic time, and now housed in the Natural History Museum. It depicts the natural history of this extraordinary land and the events that marked these initial formative years, as seen through the eyes of European settlers. The artists' drawings of the people and culture of the Eora people, the local indigenous population ofthe area, provide the only lasting visual record of their lives.

Some biographers are critical of John Hunter's leadership style as the Governor of Port Jackson. Others say he was a failure at sea. Linda Groom disagrees and claims that Hunter was an outstanding seaman whose mere survival as governor was an achievement for his time. Linda Groom is Curator of the National Library of Australia's Pictures Collection.

The photographs in First Fleet serve as a time capsule of a unique time in the history of manned spaceflight.