European and North American Natural History drawings made before 1900 are historically understood as either works of fine art or as scientific records. The Morgan Library & Museum’s significant collection of natural history drawings, however, provides an opportunity to rethink longstanding divisions between the arts and sciences. This seminar will focus on collection holdings made by artists working in The Netherlands, Germany, England, France, and the Americas, from ca. 1450 to ca. 1850. Participants will have the opportunity to closely examine a large selection of works by Maria Sibylla Merian, Mark Catesby, Madeleine Françoise Basseporte, Georg Dionysius Ehret, John James Audubon, and many others. Lively discussions will address the production and subsequent uses of natural history drawings, including the ways in which techniques of observation and scientific developments informed drawing praxis. Key too will be instances in which artistic practice conditioned the production of empirical knowledge. We will also consider how gender, patronage, collecting practices, and colonial expansion inform natural history drawings.

This seminar is open to graduate students of the history of art, the history of science, and related fields, and also to graduate students interested in the conservation of works on paper. Applicants are kindly invited to submit a one paragraph statement which should include the following:

- Name and email
- Academic institution
- Class year
- Field of study
- Interest in Natural History drawings and relevance of the seminar to your research

Applications should be submitted electronically with the subject header Drawing Nature Seminar to: drawinginstitutethemorgan.org

Participants will be notified by March 4.

Led by Sarah Mallory, Assistant Curator of Drawings and Prints at the Morgan; Olivia Dill, Moore Curatorial Fellow at the Morgan; and Roberta J. M. Olson, Curator of Drawings Emerita at The New York Historical

9:00 am - 4:00 pm