Folio volume containing drawings collected BY P.B. Milius

Component identifier:

Item 1

Content Summary:

Large folio bound in green cloth, red russia label on front cover lettered: Denisse / Dessins Originaux / 1814.

All but one of the drawings are mounted, each page being about 17" high. The drawings are of various sizes, the one unmounted drawing is a pencil sketch of a scene probably in Timor. This and sixteen other pencil and watercolour drawings at the front of the volume appear to be connected with the Voyage aux Terres Australes, 1800-1804 commanded by Baudin.

The rest of the drawings are of plants and are nearly all signed by Etienne Denisse and dated 1814. In 1814 Denisse sailed with Milius to the Antilles.

The volume has a blue cloth covered solander case lined with soft white felt and lettered on lid: E. Denisse / Dessins Originaux / 1814.

Loose in the volume is a part of a letter with letterhead: Fisher Sperr, Booksellers, 46 Highgate High Street, London N.6. Fisher Sperr state that the volume appears to have belonged to Milius.

The volume contains four watercolour drawings signed by Milius and nine drawings, one signed, by Nicolas Martin Petit, one of the artists who sailed on the Géographe with Baudin. These thirteen drawings with the pencil drawing of a scene probably in Timor and three unsigned and rather primitive drawings (a pencil drawing of a bull and two watercolours of seabirds one unnamed and one entitled Le Lorient) make up the seventeen drawings connected with Baudin's voyage, 1800-1804. The rest of the drawings are by Denisse as stated above. Fisher Sperr ascribe the bull and the two seabirds to Petit but they are not in his style. They also state that four of the drawings by Petit are of Australian aborigines. One of these is a sketch for a larger and more finished drawing which Fisher Sperr state is of a Sumatrian. Of the other three, two are studies of the same man. These three drawings are plates 12 to 14. 12 and 14 depict the same cleanshaven man with very distended stomach carrying a sharp pointed spear. Plate 13 depicts a bearded man holding a throwing stick attached to a spear with barbed point. He carries a club in his left hand.

Of the botanical drawings by Denisse, some are watercolours but the majority are pencil. They include many well known tropical plants, manioc, arum, pineapple, vanilla, banana, coconut, etc. Plate 35 is entitled Cicca distica - Grappe d'otahiti and plate 54 is entitled Jasmin Botany Bay. Fisher Sperr say there are two drawings of Australian plants but I have not found the other.

Plate 34 has an inscription: dernière feuille de la collection / du jardin des planted / venant des colonies / françaises / Dessinées / abord du V - sseau le lys / par Etienne Denisse / pendant la mois de Decembre / l'an 1814e.

Plate 50 has an inscription: dessiné abord du Vaisseau / le lys / Commandé par Monsieur Milius.

Names:

Pierre Bernard Milius

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