Amazing rare things: the art of natural history in the age of discovery.

London: Royal Collection Publications, 2007.
Small quarto, dustwrapper, 224 pp. colour illustrations.

This beautifully illustrated book is from an exhibition that brings together the works of four artists and a collector who have shaped our knowledge of the world around us. Leonardo da Vinci, Cassiano dal Pozzo, Alexander Marshal, Maria Sibylla Merian and Mark Catesby are diverse figures who shared a passion for enquiry and a fascination with the beautiful and bizarre in nature.

Accompanies the exhibition "Amazing rare things: the art of natural history in the age of discovery", at The Queen's Gallery, Palace of Holyroodhouse, 2 March - 16 September 2007 and The Queen's Gallery, Buckingham Palace, 14 March - 21 September 2008.

The exhibition brings together the works of four artists and a collector who have shaped our knowledge of the world around us. Leonardo da Vinci, Cassiano dal Pozzo, Alexander Marshal, Maria Sibylla Merian and Mark Catesby are diverse figures who shared a passion for enquiry and a fascination with the beautiful and bizarre in nature. All lived at a time when new species were being discovered around the world in ever increasing numbers. Many of the plants and animals represented in the exhibition were then barely known in Europe. Today some are commonplace, others are now extinct. Also available in paperback [stock id 30921].