Sarah Stone (c. 1760 – 1844), later known as Sarah Smith, was a British natural history illustrator and

painter Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ai ...

. Her works included many studies of specimens brought back to England from expeditions in Australia and the Pacific. Her illustrations are amongst the first studies of many species and are as scientifically significant.

Work

Stone was the daughter of a fan painter. She worked as a draftsman, natural history and scientific illustrator, and painter between 1777 and 1820. She was commissioned by

Sir Ashton Lever Sir Ashton Lever Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS (5 March 1729 – 28 January 1788) was an England, English collector of natural objects, in particular the Leverian collection.Leverian Museum The Leverian collection was a natural history and ethnographic collection assembled by Ashton Lever. It was noted for the content it acquired from the voyages of Captain James Cook. For three decades it was displayed in London, being broken up ...

. which included specimens brought back by British expeditions to Australia, the Americas, Africa and the Far East in the 1780s and 1790s. She exhibited as an "Honorary Exhibitor" at the

Royal Academy of Arts The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its purpo ...

in 1781, 1785 and 1786. Stone created numerous watercolour paintings of specimens sent by John White, the First Surgeon General of the Australian colony, between 1789 and 1790. These paintings were used to produce engravings for White's ''A Journal of a Voyage to New South Wales'' (1790). Although beautiful and skilfully drawn the drawings were sometimes compromised by the fact that she was working from skins collected in Australia and reconstructed by a taxidermist in London to reproduce an animal or bird that had never been seen. Her collection of more than a thousand water colours based on specimens from the Leverian Museum were dispersed along with the museum items auctioned in 1806. Some of her paintings were acquired by the Natural History Museum, London while others went into private collections. They may be valuable in resolving some species described by J.F. Gmelin, the specimens of which are now untraceable. Stone's work is held by the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

and the Victoria Gallery and Museum, University of Liverpool in Great Britain, and the

National Library of Australia The National Library of Australia (NLA), formerly the Commonwealth National Library and Commonwealth Parliament Library, is the largest reference library in Australia, responsible under the terms of the ''National Library Act 1960'' for "mainta ...

, and the

State Library of New South Wales The State Library of New South Wales, part of which is known as the Mitchell Library, is a large heritage-listed special collections, reference and research library open to the public and is one of the oldest libraries in Australia. Establish ...

in Australia.

Personal life

On 8 September 1789 Stone married John Langdale Smith.

Gallery

Images by Sarah Stone - A journal of a voyage to New South Wales. File:Journal of a voyage to New South Wales (17708512908).jpg, Snake no. 1 File:Poto Roo in journal of voyage 1790 John White.jpg, Poto Roo, an illustration of ''

Potorous tridactylus The long-nosed potoroo (''Potorous tridactylus'') is a small, hopping, gerbil-like mammal native to forests and shrubland of southeastern Australia and Tasmania. A member of the rat-kangaroo family (Potoroidae), it lives alone and digs at night f ...

'' File:Journal of a voyage to New South Wales (17708738688).jpg, New Holland creeper, female

References

External links

A digitized version of White's ''A Journal of a Voyage to New South Wales'' (1790)

A digitized version of George Shaw's ''Museum Leverianum'' (1792-1796)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Stone, Sarah 1760 births 1844 deaths Artists from London 19th-century English artists English women artists Natural history illustrators Scientific illustrators 19th-century English women Australian bird artists