Georg Dionysius Ehret

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Georg Dionysius Ehret
1708-1770
Phallus impudicus (Stinkhorn)
1763
Watercolor on parchment.
12 1/2 x 7 3/4 inches (318 x 197 mm)
Purchase.
1978.8:26
Notes: 

One of 73 drawings of ferns, flowers, and fungi by Ehret (1978.8:1-73).
Watermark: Crown over initials G.R.

Inscription: 

Signed and dated in pen and brown ink: observauit G.D. Ehret - 1763; inscribed at left: This figure represents a longitudinal / section of the swelling; the whole of / this, is, a fleshy Gelatinous substance which incloses [sic] part of the Cylindrical / Tube: The end of this Tube is wonderfully / fixed or united upon a small Pistil / see fig. a, standing in the center / of this Gelatinous Substance. ; inscribed at right : Phallus impudicus. / Lin: / Stinkhorn / This appears in the Figure / to be a new Species of Phallus. / it grew among the Bushes / in the Garden of her Grace / the Duches [sic] of Portland at Bulsdrobe Nov. 12.
Verso: in graphite upper left in a circle 26. Upper right 13/6 and bottom left 70/1. A transfer from a print (printer oil) of same subject.

Provenance: 
Margaret Cavendish Harley Bentinck, Duchess of Portland, Bulstrode, England; her sale, London, Portland Museum, Skinner, 24 April 1786 ff. (to Walker); Mrs. Elizabeth Walker; by descent to John Walker Ford; H. P. Kraus, New York.
Associated names: 

Portland, Margaret Cavendish Holles Harley Bentinck, Duchess of, 1715-1785, former owner.
Walker, Elizabeth, former owner.
Ford, John Walker, former owner.
Kraus, Hans Peter, 1907-1988, former owner.

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