Natural History

This watercolor was made when APS Member Titian Ramsay Peale II was on the "Long Expedition," which explored the region between the Mississippi River and the Rockies from 1819 to 1820. Peale, both a naturalist and an artist, participated in several important exploratory expeditions. 

Natural history illustration played an important role in exploration. Photography was not possible to use during expeditions until after circa 1860. Artists-naturalists were needed to document newly discovered lands and their flora and fauna.

Titian II was the son of APS Member and famed portrait painter Charles Willson Peale. He was named Titian Ramsay Peale II after his much loved older brother, Titian Ramsay Peale, who died before he was born. Titian II was elected to the APS in 1883.

This life-size drawing is 40 inches long and is considered one of the premier early American natural history images. It documents a scientific dissection.

Native to the eastern United States, the timber rattlesnake (Crotalus horridus) was often used as a symbol for the American colonies, as in Benjamin Franklin’s “JOIN, or DIE” cartoon and the motto “Don’t Tread on Me.” Superstitions about the snake’s “fascinating faculty”—its ability to enchant its prey—spurred scientific debate.
 

This flesh eating plant has fascinated people since its 1769 discovery in the eastern wetlands of North Carolina.

Philadelphia botanist, artist, and APS Member William Bartram collected Venus flytraps in the wild in North Carolina. He also cultivated and drew them in his own garden in Philadelphia. APS Member Thomas Jefferson was also fascinated with the Venus flytrap and imported seeds to Paris when he lived there. Later he grew flytraps at his Virginia home, Monticello.

In 1773, APS Member William Bartram embarked upon a four-year journey through eight southern colonies. He started in Philadelphia and went as far south as Florida, where he drew this map.

He made many drawings and took notes on the native flora and fauna, as well as the Indigenous peoples. This map was made in 1774. Later Bartram wrote Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida, the Cherokee Country, etc. At the time, it was considered one of the foremost books on American natural history.
 

Titian Ramsay Peale II was an early American naturalist and artist who participated in several important exploratory expeditions. Photography was not possible on expeditions until around 1860. Artists were needed to document the newly discovered landscapes, plants, and animals.

Peale participated in the five year long United States Exploring Expedition, an exploration of the Pacific Ocean and surrounding lands conducted from 1838 to 1842. He painted this watercolor of the Mauna Loa volcano while in Hawaii.

Titian II was the son of APS Member and famed portrait painter Charles Willson Peale. He was named Titian Ramsay Peale II after his much loved older brother, Titian Ramsay Peale, who died before he was born. Titian II was elected to the APS in 1883. 
 

John James Audubon’s complete set of Birds of America was purchased by the APS on October 7, 1831, and Audubon was elected an APS Member the same year.

Audubon's Birds of America is a portal into the natural world. Printed between 1827 and 1838, it contains 435 life-sized watercolors of North American birds, all reproduced from hand-engraved plates. They have long been the standard by which other natural history illustrations have been measured. They are called “elephant folios” because they are so big (39.5 inches tall x 28.5 inches wide).

Anthropologist Franz Boas created these drawings of Arctic ice in 1883 when he began his fieldwork with the Inuit of Baffin Island, Canada.

Boas, 25 years old, spent a year learning the Inuit language, living in their tents and snow houses, sharing their food, and experiencing their culture. At the same time he was taking detailed notes and surveying and mapping the landscape and coastline. Boas became the most influential anthropologist of his time. He shaped the field of modern anthropology by challenging widespread beliefs in a cultural hierarchy.
 

Charles Willson Peale’s Philadelphia Museum was the first successful public museum in the United States.

Peale began his artistic career by painting portraits of America’s founders. To disperse “a knowledge of Nature which may be profitable to my Country,” Charles Willson converted his portrait studio into a museum and added natural history specimens. He later moved his Philadelphia Museum to the APS’s Philosophical Hall from 1794-1810. Today, Philosophical Hall is the site of the APS Museum.

Peale's sense of humor is shown on this ticket. He created fanciful drawings of creatures from the ancient horseshoe crab to the flying squirrel to the ostrich. A paddlefish--the first item in the museum collection, donated by APS President Robert Patterson--is depicted at the bottom of the ticket.

Peale had a total of 17 children with two wives. Many were named after artists, such as Titian Ramsay Peale, Rembrandt Peale, Raphaelle Peale, Sophonisba Augusciola Peale, and Sybilla Miriam Peale. Charles Willson Peale became an APS Member in 1786.

This drawing by Philadelphia naturalist and APS Member William Bartram is of a native North American woodland orchid, Arethusa divaricata, also known as Cleistesiopsis divaricata. You can see early Philadelphia in the background.

In the detail, note two carnivorous native American plants: a sundew at the base of the orchid, and a Venus flytrap to the left. Also note a Native American paddling a canoe on the Delaware River.