Abstract

Describes the collection of paintings, drawings, and prints of birds and fishes amassed by two founder-members of the Royal Society and used as a source of illustrations for their publications Ornithologiae libri tres and De historia piscium libri quartuor . Examines the motivations behind the collection, its arrangement, function, and use, and what this suggests about how natural historians valued pictures and their epistemological significance, especially as signifiers of the structural coherence of nature