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Lot description
MATHER BROWN (AMERICAN 1761 - 1831)PORTRAIT OF ANNE RUDGE (NÉE NOUIALLE) (1761 - 1836)Oil on canvas74 x 62cm (29 x 24¼ in.)Provenance:The collection of a member of the Rudge familyThence by descentAnne Rudge (1763-1836) is one of the earliest known published female botanical artists.Her marriage to husband Edward Rudge (1763-1846), has been described as the perfect scientific and artistic partnership. Anne was already well educated and skilled in drawing before her marriage and was able to utilise her artistic ability by illustrating her husband's botanical research.Edward was a wealthy landowner and skilled amateur botanist who published a major work, Plantarum Guianae, on the plants of Guiana between 1805 and 1807. At a time when many new specimens from Australia were being sent back to England, Edward Rudge made a significant contribution to Australian botany by describing twenty-seven Australian plants for the first time in a series of four papers delivered before the Linnean Society between 1805 and 1811.Anne drew the fifty plates for Plantarum Guianae, as well as producing the illustrations for the papers her husband wrote for the Linnean Society. Her drawings were held in such high esteem during her lifetime that a species of water lily was named after her.The authenticity of this painting has previously been confirmed on the basis of photographs by Dorinda Evans.