Portraits of the Founding Fathers of Botanical Study

An archive of 27 portraits of the founding fathers of botany, including Dodoens, Leeuwenhoek, Grew, Hill, Aldrovandi, Smith, Desfontaines, Palisot, Gessner, Everard, Bonnet, Banks, Buffon, Gray, Evelyn, Linnaeus, Cuvier, Klein, Clusius, and Agassiz. 1. Rembert Dodoens (born Rembert Van Joenckema, 1517 1585) was a Flemish physician and botanist. Rembert Dodoens (Rembertus Dodonaeus) was one of the great botanists of the 16th century who pursued a knowledge of plants in their own right, not simply for medicinal uses. Contemporary copper engraving, 4 7/8 x 7" on 7 3/8 x 10 1/2". 2. Antonius Leeuwenhoek (1632 - 1723), Dutch "Father of Microbiology" with botanical importance, who worked with William III of Orange and his wife, Mary II of England, and Tsar Peter the Great of Russia. Copper engraving, 5 1/2 x 7 1/8". 3. Nehemiah Grew (1641 1712) was an English plant anatomist and physiologist, known as the "Father of Plant Anatomy". Copper engraving, 5 3/4 x 9 1/4". 4. John Hill (ca. 1714 1775), was an English author and botanist who contributed to contemporary periodicals including the botanical compendium 'The Vegetable System'. Copper engraving, 8 7/8 x 11 1/4" on 9 5/8 x 12 1/2". 5. Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522 1605) was an Italian naturalist, professor of botany, and one of the founders of the Bologna's botanical garden, one of the first in Europe. Carl Linnaeus and the Comte de Buffon considered Aldrovandi the father of natural history studies. 5 7/8 x 8 3/8". 6. Sir James Edward Smith (1759 1828) was an English botanist and founder of the Linnean Society, 5 x 7" on 8 7/8 x 11 5/8". 7. Rene Louiche Desfontaines (1750 1833) was a French botanist who studied medicine. His interest in botany originated from lectures given by Louis Guillaume Lemonnier at the Jardin des Plantes, 9 1/4 x 12 1/4". 8. Charles-François Brisseau de Mirbel (1776 1854) was a French botanist and politician. He was a founder of the science of plant cytology, 9 1/2 x 12 1/2". 9. Ambroise Marie François Joseph Palisot, Baron de Beauvois (1752 - 1820, Paris) was a French naturalist who was trained as a botanist, and published an important paper on American entomology, 9 x 12". 10. Antoine Laurent de Jussieu (1748 1836) was a French botanist, notably the first to publish a natural classification of flowering plants; his system remains largely in use today, 9 1/2 x 12 1/2". 11. Conrad Gessner (1516 1565) was a Swiss physician and naturalist, regarded as the father of modern scientific bibliography, zoology and botany. Gessner was working on a major botanical text at the time of his early death from the plague, 3 5/8 x 5 1/8" on 6 1/8 x 7 7/8". 12. Michael Rotenbeck (1569 - 1623) physician and collector of botanical works. Copper engraving, 7 5/8 x 4 3/4" on 13 x 8 1/2". 13. Dr. Giles Everard or Gilles Everaerts (16th century; active in 1580s), Dutch physician who wrote works on the beneficial medicinal effects of tobacco smoking. Copper engraving, 4 7/8 x 6" on 8 1/2 x 10". 14. Charles Bonnet (1720 1793), Naturalist and philosophical writer. He coined the term phyllotaxis to describe the arrangement of leaves on a plant. 8 1/2 x 12 1/2". 15. Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (1707 1788) was a French naturalist, mathematician, cosmologist, and encyclopediste. Buffon was the director at the Jardin du Roi, now called the Jardin des Plantes. Buffon published 36 quarto volumes of his 'Histoire Naturelle' during his lifetime. Ernst Mayr wrote that "Truly, Buffon was the father of all thought in natural history in the second half of the 18th century". 4 1/2 x 6 3/8" on 9 x 11 1/2". 16. Sir Joseph Banks, 1st Baronet, GCB, PRS (1743 1820), English naturalist, botanist and patron of the natural sciences. 7 x 10 3/8". 17. Asa Gray (1810 1888) is considered the most important American botanist of the 19th century. His Darwiniana was significant as an explanation of how religion and science were not necessarily mutually exclusive. Gray was convinced.…