Pencil on paper, laid on card, mounted

16.8 cm. by 10.4 cm.

Inscribed on image lower right ‘WS 1841-8’ and partial inscription lower left. Inscribed on card below image ‘McDonoughs Creek, Lower Hutt, NZ’ and on reverse in the artist’s hand ‘Since this drawing was made a substantial wooden Bridge has been erected’.

The drawing depicts a figure crossing over a shallow gorge on a felled tree trunk. As often with Swainson’s drawings, his interest in the natural history content demonstrates itself with his careful and accurate depiction of the leaves of the tree fern in the background.

William Swainson was a renowned English ornithologist, malacologist, conchologist, entomologist and artist. He published and illustrated numerous publications on the subject of natural history and was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1820 on his return from an expedition to Brazil. His reputation in Britain was tarnished following his support for the Quinarian system of biological classification, a system proposed by William Sharp Macleay in 1819 but which, despite the support of proponents such as Swainson, quickly fell out of favour. As a result, Swainson decided to retire from scholarly work and emigrate with most of his family to New Zealand. He bought a plot of land in the Hutt valleys south of Wellington. But his life-long love of natural history remained unabated and in his sketches in and around his estate it is clear that the sight of a fine natural history specimen, often tree ferns, inspired a beautiful and accurate depiction of the scene.

Following disputes over land ownership with local Maoris, Swainson left for Sydney in 1851 and embarked on further natural history studies before returning to New Zealand a couple of years later where he died in the Hutt Valley in 1854.

Many related examples of Swainson’s sketches from this period and earlier, along with much of his correspondence, are in the National Library of New Zealand.