◇ New World Naturalist - Set of 5 Prints

This curated set of five prints restores the vibrant, pioneering spirit of the 1730s American wilderness to the contemporary interior. Each plate serves as an atmospheric window into a landscape once considered "the hinterlands," balancing scientific precision with a distinctly whimsical, pre-Linnaean charm. The collection evokes a sense of quiet discovery, offering a viewing experience that is both intellectually stimulating and visually grounding through its rhythmic compositions of bird, beast, and botanical.

Why We Picked It
These specific plates were selected for their sophisticated use of spatial incoherence—a technical hallmark where Catesby often placed animals and plants on separate geometric planes, creating a proto-surrealist aesthetic. The palette avoids the neon brightness of later Victorian prints, favoring earthy pigments, muted ochres, and deep forest greensthat respond beautifully to natural light. The line work, originally etched by Catesby himself to ensure fidelity, retains a textured, hand-wrought quality that adds a layer of "lived-in" history to any collection.

Notable Context
Published between 1731 and 1743, The Natural History of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands was the first comprehensive record of North American species, predating Audubon’s Birds of America by nearly a century. Catesby began his fieldwork during a period of intense colonial expansion; his work was a direct response to the "Curiosity Cabinets" of the Enlightenment, where European intellectuals craved tangible proof of the New World's wonders. Unlike his contemporaries, Catesby was a self-taught etcher who insisted on depicting specimens alongside their native host plants—a revolutionary ecological approach at the time. This set reflects the shift from myth-based naturalism to the empirical observation that eventually formed the basis for modern binomial nomenclature.

About the Artist
Mark Catesby (1683–1749) was a British naturalist and explorer whose dedication to the American colonies earned him the title "The Father of American Ornithology." Funded by the Royal Society, Catesby spent years traversing the Virginia and Carolina wilderness, often sketching from living models to capture a vitality lost in preserved specimens. His legacy lies in his dual role as both scientist and artist; he did not merely document nature, he composed it, leaving behind a visual vernacular that defined the American landscape for the European imagination.