Decades before the advent of photography, when European scientists and explorers were undertaking global expeditions and collecting flora and fauna from around the world, art and science converged in fields of medicine, anthropology, and natural history. During the Enlightenment, artists like Elizabeth Blackwell, John Gould, and Elizabeth Gould—among many, many others—documented botanicals, avians, insects, marine species, and more, many of which were published in hefty volumes and archived in museum collections.
Sarah Stone (1759-1844) was a British illustrator and the daughter of a fan painter, whose rich depictions of birds and artifacts highlight a singular talent during an era when women weren’t even permitted to be members of London’s prestigious Royal Academy. Nevertheless, she was invited to exhibit four drawings as an “Honorary Exhibitor” when she was 21.
In the 1770s, British businessman and collector Sir Ashton Lever commissioned Stone to paint items in his museum chock-full of natural and ethnographic objects he called the Holophusikon, also known as the Lever Museum. Stone painted objects at Lever’s Holophusikon well into the 1780s, creating a visual chronicle of objects and fauna acquired from all over the world.
Aristocratic private museums were a phenomenon of the Enlightenment, when Britain enjoyed wealth, prestige, and influence, much of which was derived from other parts of the empire and the transatlantic slave trade. Many of today’s institutions, such as the British Museum, began with individuals’ private collections.
Nearly two dozen of the artist’s paintings are currently on view in Sarah Stone’s Unseen World: A Rare Collection of 18th Century Ornithological Watercolours as part of the Master Drawings New York art fair. Surveying a wide range of incredible birds, from the Bornean peacock pheasant to the distinctive orange-and-black rufous treepie.
The exhibition shares its title with a book co-authored by Errol Fuller and art dealer Craig Finch of Finch & Co., which presents the paintings this month. “Like many women painters of her time, Stone produced exquisite watercolour landscapes,” says a statement. “However, she was exceptional in her commercial success, with her paintings sought after by connoisseurs and collectors. In an era when women’s contributions were often overlooked, Stone defied the norm and stood out as a prominent figure.”
Sarah Stone’s Unseen World continues at Peter Harrington Rare Books in Manhattan through February 7.
