Painting, fossilised rhinoceros skull by W H [William Home] Clift

Description

Plate 3 showing a fossilised rhinoceros skull. According to Everard Home's text, this painting was made from a cast of the fossil specimen sent by the Tsar of Russia to Sir Joseph Banks and deposited in the British Museum. However, the plate note attributes it to a skull in the Jardin des Plantes, Paris [France]. The work is inscribed with publication and plate details and lower left 'Scale 3 Inches to a Foot'. Signed lower left 'W.H. Clift del.' Royal Society stamp verso. The manuscript for this paper is wanting.

Subject: Zoology / Palaeontology

Published in Philosophical Transactions as part of paper titled 'On a new species of Rhinoceros found in the interior of Africa, the skull of which bears a close resemblance to that found in a fossil state in Siberia and other countries' by Everard Home.

Read to the Royal Society on 13 December 1821.

Reference number

PT/73/9/3

Earliest possible date

1821

Physical description

Ink wash on artists' paper

Page extent

1 page

Format

Painting

Digital version available on The Royal Society Picture Library

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