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.

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.

During the late eighteenth century, a musical–cultural phenomenon swept the globe. The English square piano—invented in the early 1760s by an entrepreneurial German guitar maker in London—not only became an indispensable part of social life, but also inspired the creation of an expressive and scintillating repertoire. Square pianos reinforced music as life’s counterpoint, and were played by royalty, by musicians of the highest calibre and by aspiring amateurs alike. On Sunday, 13 May 1787, a square piano departed from Portsmouth on board the Sirius, the flagship of the First Fleet, bound for Botany Bay. Who made the First Fleet piano, and when was it made? Who owned it? Who played it, and who listened? What music did the instrument sound out, and within what contexts was its voice heard? What became of the First Fleet piano after its arrival on antipodean soil, and who played a part in the instrument’s subsequent history? Two extant instruments contend for the title ‘First Fleet piano’; which of these made the epic journey to Botany Bay in 1787–88? The First Fleet Piano: A Musician’s View answers these questions, and provides tantalising glimpses of social and cultural life both in Georgian England and in the early colony at Sydney Cove. The First Fleet piano is placed within the musical and social contexts for which it was created, and narratives of the individuals whose lives have been touched by the instrument are woven together into an account of the First Fleet piano’s conjunction with the forces of history. View ‘The First Fleet Piano: Volume Two Appendices’. Note: Volume 1 and 2 are sold as a set ($180 for both) and cannot be purchased separately.

This volume traces the 300-year history of bird art in Australia, from the crudely illustrated records of the earliest European voyages of discovery to the diversity of artwork available at the start of the 21st century. It is a history inseparable from the development of Australian ornithology. Against a background of establishment of the country itself, naval draftsmen, convicts, officers, settlers, naturalists, artists and scientists alike contributed both to the art and to science.

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