Bauer, Ferdinand Lukas (1760 - 1826)

Summary

Ferdinand Bauer was botanical draughtsman to Matthew Flinders' exploration of the New South Wales coast 1801-1803. He made 1541 drawings of Australian plants, of which 236 are preserved in the Natural History Museum, London.

Details

Born Feldberg, Austria, 20 January 1760. Died Vienna, 17 March 1826. Encouraged in botanical drawing by a priest, Norbert Boccius; illustrated "Icones Plantarum Rariorum" 1781-86; travel in the Mediterranean 1786-87, drawings later published as "Flora Graeca"; accompanied Matthew Flinders (q.v.) in the "Investigator" as botanical draughtsman 1800-1805; some of his drawings were published as "Illustrationes Florae Novae Hollandiae" (London, 1813), and some in other publications such as the atlas to Flinders' "A voyage to Terra Australis" (London, 1814) but the majority remained unpublished because his standards were too perfectionist.

Chronology

1801 - c. 1805

Career event - Botanical draughtsman to Flinders' Australian expedition

1843

Taxonomy event - Eucalyptus setosa Schau. Bauer and R. Brown jointly collected the type.

1843

Taxonomy event - Eucalyptus ferruginea Schau. Bauer and R. Brown jointly collected the type.

1843

Taxonomy event - Bauer was commemorated with Eucalyptus bauerana Schau.

Related entries

Archival resources

Adolph Basser Library, Australian Academy of Science

• Australian Botanists - Biographies, MS 064; Adolph Basser Library, Australian Academy of Science. Details

Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales

• Ferdinand Lukas Bauer - Records, 1801 - 1803, ML MSS 840; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details
• Linnean Society of London - Records, 1792 - 1870, FM 4/2699; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details

Published resources

Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation Exhibitions

• McCarthy, Gavan; Smith, Ailie; Moje, Christine; Rigby, Rebecca, The Study of Australian Eucalypts, eScholarship Research Centre, 2013, http://www.eoas.info/eucalypts/index.html. Details

Books

• Bauer, Ferdinand, Ferdinandi Bauer Illustrationes florae Novae Hollandiae, sive, Icones generum quae in Prodromo florae Novae Hollandiae et Insulae Van Diemen descripsit Robertus Brown (Londini: Veneunt apud auctorem, 10 Russel Street, Bloomsbury, 1813), 15 pp. Details
• Brown, Robert, General remarks, geographical and systematical, on the botany of terra australis (London: W. Bulmer printer, 1814), 81 pp. Details
• Cooper, Paul M., Images of nature: the Bauer brothers (London: Natural History Museum, 2015), 112 pp. Details
• Lack, Hans Walter, The Bauers Joseph, Franz and Ferdinand: an illustrated history (Munich, Germany: Prestel, 2015), 528 pp. Details
• Mabberley, David, Ferdinand Bauer, the Nature of Discovery (London: Merrell Holberton and the Natural History Museum, 1999), 128 pp. Details
• Mabberley, David, Painting by numbers: the life and art of Ferdinand Bauer (Sydney: NewSouth Books, 2017), 272 pp. Details
• Norst, Marlene, Ferdinand Bauer: the Australian Natural History Drawings (London/Melbourne: British Museum of Natural History/Lothian, 1989), 120 pp. Details
• Watts, Peter; Pomfrett, Jo Anne and Mabberley, David, An Exquisite Eye: the Australian Flora and Fauna Drawings 1812-1820 of Ferdinand Bauer (Sydney: Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales, 1997), 167 pp. Details
• Wrigley, J.; and Fagg, M., Eucalypts: a Celebration (Crows Nest Australia: Allen & Unwin, 2010), 344 pp. Details

Book Sections

• Gathe, Janette; and Hickman, Ellen, 'Ferdinand Bauer: natural history artist' in Matthew Flinders and his scientific gentlemen: the expedition of HMS Investigator to Australia, 1801-05, Wege, Juliette, ed. (Perth: Western Australian Museum, 2006), pp. 67-75. Details
• Gilbert, L. A., 'Bauer, Ferdinand Lukas (1760-1826)' in Australian dictionary of biography, volume 1: 1788 - 1850 A-H, Douglas Pike, ed. (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1966), p. 73. http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A010068b.htm. Details

Edited Books

• Thomas, Sarah ed., The Encounter, 1802: Art of the Flinders and Baudin Voyages (Adelaide: Art Gallery of South Australia, 2002), 228 pp. Details
• Wege, Juliette ed., Matthew Flinders and his scientific gentlemen: the expedition of HMS Investigator to Australia, 1801-05 (Perth: Western Australian Museum, 2006), 184 pp. Details

Journal Articles

• Britten, J., 'Ferdinand Bauer's drawings of Australian plants', Journal of botany, London, 47 (1909), 140-6. Details
• Lack, H. W., 'Recording form in early nineteenth century botanical drawing: Ferdinand Bauer's "camera"', Curtis botanical magazine, ser. 6, 15 (1998), 254-74. Details
• Lhotsky, L., 'Biogeographical sketch of Ferdinand Bauer, natural history painter to the expedition of Captain Flinders, R.N., to Terra Australis', Hooker’s journal of botany, 2 (1843), 106-13. Details
• Mabberley, David J.; and Moore, David T., 'Catalogue of the holdings in the Natural History Museum (London) of the Australian botanical drawings of Ferdinand Bauer (1760-1826) and cognate materials relating to the Investigator voyage of 1801-1805', Bulletin of the Natural History Museum (Botany Series), 29 (2) (1999), 81-226. Details
• Moore, D. T., 'The pencil landscape drawings made by Ferdinand Bauer in Norfolk Island, from August 1804 to February 1805 in the Natural History Museum, London', Archives of Natural History, 25 (2) (1998), 213-20. Details
• Norst, Marlene, 'Ferdinand Lucas Bauer, 1760-1826: Recognition and Renaissance', Australian Natural History, 23 (4) (1990), 296-305. Details
• Stearn, William, 'Franz and Ferdinand Bauer, Masters of Botanical Illustration', Endeavour, xix (1960), 27-35. Details
• Wheeler, Alwynne and Moore, D. T., 'The animal drawings of Ferdinand Bauer in the Natural History Museum, London', Archives of Natural History, 21 (1994), 309-44. Details

Resources

• VIAF - Virtual International Authority File, OCLC, https://viaf.org/viaf/47623750. Details
• Wikidata, http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q79012. Details
• 'Bauer, Ferdinand (1760-1826)', Trove, National Library of Australia, 2009, https://nla.gov.au/nla.party-1035045. Details

Reviews

• Mabberley, David, Ferdinand Bauer, the Nature of Discovery, Merrell Holberton and the Natural History Museum, London, 1999, 128 pp.
  Cohn, Helen M., 'Ferdinand Bauer, the nature of discovery, by David Mabberley, and Catalogue of the holdings in the Natural History Museum (London) of the Australian botanical drawings of Ferdinand Bauer (1760-1826) and cognate materials relating to the Investigator voyage', Historical Records of Australian Science, 14 (1), (2002), 112-115. https://doi.org/10.1071/HR02901F_BR. Details
• Thomas, Sarah (ed.), The Encounter, 1802: Art of the Flinders and Baudin Voyages, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 2002, 228 pp.
  Moyal, Ann, 'Review', Historical Records of Australian Science, 14 (2), (2002), 237-241. https://doi.org/10.1071/HR02011. Details

See also

• Austin, K. A., The voyage of the Investigator 1801 - 1803, Commander Matthew Flinders, R.N. (Adelaide: Rigby Limited, 1964), 223 pp. Details
• Mabberley, D. J., Jupiter Botanicus: Robert Brown of the British Museum (Braunschweig: Verlag von J. Cramer, 1985), 500 pp. Details
• Maiden, J. H., 'Records of Australian botanists (second supplement)', Journal and Proceedings of The Royal Society of New South Wales, 55 (1921), 150-169. Details
• Serle, Percival, Dictionary of Australian biography (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1949). Details