A SAMPLING OF PUBLICATIONS BASED ON RESEARCH IN THE COLLECTIONS

Hidden in Plain Sight

Members of Spain’s Royal Botanical Expedition to New Granada did not travel lightly. Led by José Celestino Mutis (1732–1809), the group included more than 40 artists who went on to produce approximately 6,700 illustrations of flora and fauna. In addition to art implements and scientific instruments, the men also used books—sometimes thick leather-bound folios containing illustrations by well-known artists in Europe.

Left: Daniela Bleichmar in discussion with students.  Photo by Don Milici.

“When scholars think about 18th-century scientific expeditions, they think British or French,” explains Daniela Bleichmar, assistant professor of art history at the University of Southern California. “But Spain sponsored more than 50 expeditions to the Americas during the same period.” She takes an interdisciplinary approach to her research, combining her interests in the history of science, empire, and visual culture. She holds a joint appointment in the Spanish and Portuguese departments at USC.

Mutis was aware that he had something to prove to his own readers in Europe, who were more familiar with the likes of English naturalist Mark Catesby or Dutch scientist Nikolaus Jacquin. Expedition artists took Catesby and Jacquin illustrations into the field and critiqued them with a scrutiny usually reserved for plant specimens. They then improved on earlier images or produced definitive illustrations for new plants that couldn’t be found among iconic treatises of the day.

For Bleichmar, this history of illustrated books also becomes a history of observation. The circulation of new drawings—in journals, periodicals, and books—was critical to artists whose works became part of a continuous cycle of taxonomy.

“The history of the book and the history of reading has mostly been about the history of text,” explains Bleichmar, who as a historian of science and art is ensuring that books are scrutinized as visual records as well.

WILLIAM & MARY & HUNTINGTON

The July 2007 issue of the William and Mary Quarterly, published by the Omohundro Institute, features an article by Peter Thompson of Oxford University, the convener of the first workshop in a series to be sponsored jointly by Omohundro and the USC-Huntington Early Modern Studies Institute. His essay explores approaches to the study of 17th-century history. Two other articles in the issue arise from the numerous workshops sponsored by the Early Modern Studies Institute every year. Carol Shammas, of USC, writes about housing in the early United States; she presented an early version to The Huntington’s American Origins seminar group. And Anya Zilberstein’s article about trade in the Pacific Northwest was the subject of a workshop about early California and the Pacific Rim.

The September–October 2007 issue of Cactus and Succulent Journal is dedicated to Myron Kimnach, director emeritus of the Huntington Botanical Gardens and a former editor of the journal. Kimnach contributes two articles himself, part one of his early memoirs and a description of Echeveria lyonsii, a new species named for the current curator of the Huntington Desert Garden, Gary Lyons.

These recent publications are proof positive that book-length projects represent only one facet of a scholar’s activities. Journals and anthologies bring together multiple points of view, often around a particular topic. Peter Mancall also served as guest editor of a recent edition of the Huntington Library Quarterly. The first issue of volume 70 is titled “Travel Writing in the Early Modern World,” with articles on exploration in the 17th and 18th centuries. One contributor to that issue found her way into another recent periodical. In a special issue devoted to 37 innovators under the age of 36, Smithsonian magazine recognizes a former Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow of the Early Modern Studies Institute, Daniela Bleichmar.

Correction

The original version of this article misstated the role of the USC-Huntington Early Modern Studies Institute in the publication of The Atlantic World and Virginia, 1550–1624 and the conference of the same title. Although institute director edited the collection of articles, the institute did not sponsor the publication or conference. Cosponsors of the conference included the College of William and Mary, the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, the Reed Foundation, and the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities.

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