The Bauers Joseph, Franz & Ferdinand Masters of Botanical Illustration An Illustrated Biography HANS WALTER LACK P RESTEL Munich • London • New York 001-011 Bauer prelims FINAL.indd 1 13/07/2015 13:43 To Eva, the companion of my life This book has been published in conjunction with the exhibition on the Bauers commencing at the Natural History Museum, London in November 2015. © The Trustees of the Natural History Museum, London, 2015 This edition is published by Prestel Verlag by arrangement with the Natural History Museum All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be transmitted in any form or by any means without prior permission from the copyright owner. The Author has asserted his right to be identified as the Author of this work under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Address of author: [email protected] Prestel Verlag, Munich A member of Verlagsgruppe Random House GmbH Prestel Verlag Neumarkter Strasse 28 81673 Munich Tel. +49 (0)89 4136-0 Fax +49 (0)89 4136-2335 www.prestel.de Prestel Publishing Ltd. 14-17 Wells Street London W1T 3PD Tel. +44 (0)20 7323-5004 Fax +44 (0)20 7323-0271 Prestel Publishing 900 Broadway, Suite 603 New York, NY 10003 Tel. +1 (212) 995-2720 Fax +1 (212) 995-2733 www.prestel.com Library of Congress Control Number is available; British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data: a catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library; Deutsche Nationalbibliothek holds a record of this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographical data can be found under: http://www.dnb.de ISBN 978-3-7913-5489-7 (trade edition) Designed by Mercer Design, London Reproduction by Saxon Digital Services, UK Printed by C&C Offset, China 001-011 Bauer prelims FINAL.indd 2 13/07/2015 13:43 contents preface 4 chapter 8 188 chapter 15 386 acknowledgements 6 Franz Bauer in the circle of Sir Joseph Franz Bauer in the circle of Sir Banks in London and Kew Everard Home in London and Kew preliminary notes 7 Sir Joseph Banks, bt, pc, gcb, dcl, prs, fsa Sir Everard Home, bt, vprs, fsa, frcs, frcp, fls Franz settles down in Kew The painted record of dramatis personae 8 * * Structure and function, or the aggressive the Royal Garden at Kew * Delineations of exotick behaviour of the male Great Diving Beetle * introduction 9 plants and Strelitzia picta The life cycle of wheat * * The physical basis of human sex and The enigmatic barberry bush * Other cereal killers reproduction * Blood, aneurisms and tumours chapter 1 12 * Animals on the dissecting table * Lectures on chapter 9 226 comparative anatomy * Home’s ‘plagiarisms’ The incompletely known world Ferdinand Bauer, the years between chapter 2 18 Watermarks * A puzzle for everybody * chapter 16 404 Sibthorp’s legacy The Bauer brothers: formative Franz Bauer, the Nestor of Kew years in Feldsberg The Royal Garden at Kew in decline* The Royal Rural countryside * The Bauer family* Norbert chapter 10 244 Society and the Mummy cloth * The visit to Paris * Boccius, OH arrives * An early masterpiece * Ferdinand Bauer and Robert Brown Ferns * Taking precise measurements with the The Codex Liechtenstein takes shape * Recording explore Australia microscope * Niépce’s epoch making invention * and coding colours The plant and animal * The background for a major expedition Farewell illustrations of the Codex Liechtenstein * * Differences and similarities The scientific The title pages, garden views and landscapes * assistants From Spithead to King George III of the Codex Liechtenstein The Bauer brothers * chapter 17 428 * Sound Along the southern coast of Australia break off * * Along the eastern coast of Australia * Along Testaments and the disposal of the northern coast of Australia * From Timor to two estates chapter 3 54 Sydney Cove * Port Jackson and the hinterland * Ferdinand’s testament * Franz I, Emperor The interval in Vienna Norfolk Island * From Port Jackson to Liverpool of Austria, purchases * Franz’s testament * The imperial city* Nikolaus Joseph Edler von Franz’s request * Victoria, Queen of the United Jacquin, the Austrian Linnaeus In a botanical * chapter 11 294 Kingdom, decides * The auction* Ernest garden * The polished boards of Viennese society Ferdinand Bauer in the circle of Augustus, King of Hanover, purchases * Robert Sir Joseph Banks in London Brown’s acquisitions and their dispersal chapter 4 72 Mired in bureaucracy * Ferdinand in 32 Soho Joseph Bauer in papal Rome Square * Ferdinand’s plant illustrations from the chapter 18 442 voyage in the Investigator * Ferdinand’s animal Special relationships * Arts, artists and art- Posthumous publication illustrations from the voyage in the Investigator * dealers * The nascent artist from Feldsberg* Illustrationes Florae Novae Hollandiae * Ferdinand’s A double anomaly * London * Vienna * Objects of classical antiquity * Neoclassical enigmatic oil painting * Leaving England Leipzig * Utrecht idealism at its best chapter 12 320 chapter 19 452 chapter 5 90 Joseph and Ferdinand Bauer Ferdinand Bauer and John Sibthorp Fortunate circumstances back in Vienna explore the Levant The inevitable erosion* Untraceable * Joseph returns to Vienna * Joseph appointed Transferred * Evacuated from Berlin to Cracow * Ferdinand meets John Sibthorp * Vienna to Rome Director of the Liechtenstein Gallery * The Evacuated from Vienna to Vaduz * Lost for ever * Rome to Messina * Crete * Crete to Istanbul * rearrangement and opening of the Liechtenstein Istanbul to Cyprus Cyprus to Patmos Patmos – the Oberhöflein fire * * Gallery * Ferdinand returns to Vienna * Continuing to Athens * Mount Parnassus * Athens again * the Illustrationes florae Novae Hollandiae * The Mount Athos * Thessaloniki to Patras* Patras to pen-and-ink tracings * Foxgloves * Passion flowers, chapter 20 460 Oxford Ferdinand’s swan-song * Last contacts * Farwell Afterlife chapter 6 142 Obituaries * Posthumous praise * Enigmas * Ferdinand Bauer in Oxford chapter 13 350 The mystery of time Discrepancy John Sibthorp at home Franz Bauer examines red snow * * and orchids Ferdinand at work * Ferdinand’s plant epilogue 468 illustrations * Ferdinand’s animal illustrations * The Admiralty, the Royal Society and the Ferdinand’s accuracy * Ferdinand’s frontispieces Arctic * Red snow * Melville Island Plants * * Ferdinand’s Levantine costumes, Devonshire The stupendous flower of Sumatra * Tropical references 472 views and flower pieces* Arguments over money Milkweeds * A love affair with orchids * The appendix 1 479 * Ferdinand discontinues working for Sibthorp chance in the heating system and its consequences catalogue raisoné * Illustrations of Orchidaceous Plants appendix 2 timeline 480 chapter 7 164 index chapter 14 376 Franz Bauer and Joseph Franz Edler General 481 von Jacquin tour Europe Franz Bauer observes the cell Persons 483 nucleus and pollen diversity Networking in Vienna * Vienna to Karlsbad * Books, journals and manuscripts 488 Karlsbad to Berlin * Berlin to Bonn * Bonn to Priority * Greenish yellow specks * Pollen diversity * Place names 489 Leiden * Leiden to London Pollen sterility, pollen germination and sulphuric acid Plants, fungi, algae and animals 493 001-011 Bauer prelims FINAL.indd 3 30/07/2015 09:49 preface here are moments in life one does not collection of fine paintings and sculptures exhibited in the forget. To me such a moment occurred in the family’s summer residence in the Rossau quarter of Vienna. afternoon of a summer day in 1974 whilst a visitor In parallel with the increased understanding of the Tat the Natural History Museum in London. Together with manifold activities of the Bauer brothers it gradually Dr. William T. Stearn, principal senior scientific officer in became evident that their various pencil drawings, finished the Department of Botany, great connoisseur of botanical watercolours, oil paintings, manuscripts and their few extant illustration and one of the key figures in the history of letters were widely scattered. For me this resulted in repeated science at that time, we had discussed the preliminary travels all over Europe. Again there were special moments version of a joint paper on the typification of several not to be forgotten: discovering by chance, in the archive of Linnaean names in composites. Realizing that there was the Real Jardín Botánico in Madrid among the miscellaneous still some time left before the gates of the museum closed, papers of Thaddaeus Haenke, the early colour chart of the my host opened a cupboard and showed me a very large Bauer brothers explaining the colour code they had used; format, bound volume of watercolours. Never before had spending days without end in the Sherardian Library of I seen such exquisite plant illustrations, perfectly true to Oxford University marvelling at Ferdinand’s watercolours nature, recording in utmost precision many minute flower documenting plant and animal life in the Levant and details and painted in strikingly vivid colours. Stearn told correlating them with the specimens kept in the Sibthorpian me that this material originated from Franz and Ferdinand Herbarium; rediscovering fourteen massive volumes of Bauer, two brothers who had worked for the cream of the plant illustrations in a pristine state of preservation in the naturalists of their time, but that little was known about their Fürstliche Sammlung in Vaduz thought lost during the lives. He added that they would merit an in-depth study and Second World War and in part painted by Joseph, Franz and that I would be suited to write such a biography, being both Ferdinand in their early years; finding in the Staatsbibliothek a botanist and a native of Vienna where he believed Franz in Berlin an exceedingly rare Russian journal containing the and Ferdinand had spent their formative years. publication of some of the letters on the earliest heliographs This was the beginning of my research into the lives and in existence sent to Franz and kept in the archive of the work of three outstanding personalities, since it turned out Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg; locating in that there existed a third brother, Joseph, who also made a the Biblioteka Jagellońska in Cracow, Ferdinand’s swan- career as an artist, although with a quite different profile.