Cat’s Claw, with a Swallowtail
Plant and butterfly, paired the way Catesby paired every specimen in his book.
- Work
- Cat’s Claw (Mimosa circinalis), from The Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands
- Artist / naturalist
- Mark Catesby
- Origin & date
- London, 1731–1743
- Held by
- Wikimedia Commons (National Gallery of Art)
Format
The full-resolution scan, color-managed to the source — yours to print, study, and keep.
Size
$19.00
The story
Mark Catesby's The Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands (1731–1743) was the first published survey of North American plants and animals, based on Catesby's own decade of fieldwork in the American colonies — and one of his signature habits was pairing each animal with a plant from the same habitat, a compositional convention that doubled as an early argument for ecology before the word existed. Here a flowering cat's-claw branch, its curling seed pods and puffball blossoms rendered with real botanical care, shares the plate with an Eastern tiger swallowtail, wings spread flat in the period's standard specimen pose. What to notice: Catesby etched his own plates rather than handing his field drawings to a professional engraver, a rarity for the period that gives his work a slightly rougher, more direct quality than the polished botanical illustration of decades later.
About this reproduction
- Faithful reproduction of a public-domain work, sourced from Wikimedia Commons (National Gallery of Art)’s open-access release.
- Printed to order on 200gsm EMA matte art paper: smooth, no glare.
- Color-managed to the source scan.
- Ships in 5–8 business days; satisfaction guarantee.
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