Harriet and Helena Scott | Australian Lepidoptera Plate 6
Australian Lepidoptera Plate 12
Lithograph printed in black Ink on buff paper
Sheet size: 32.5 x 41.6 cm
In good condition. Framed
Printed by Allen and Wrigley for the Australian Museum c 1890. Purchased by Subscription.
$850
Harriet Scott (1830-1907)
Helena Scott (1832-1910)
Harriet and Helena Scott were the foremost natural science painters in New South Wales from 1850 until turn of the century, despite being born in an age when female scientific education was limited, women's 'gifts' were to be kept in the private sphere of home and hearth, and the professions were a male preserve. In Australia, as in England, the study of natural history was the pursuit of gentlemen, for whom amassing a collection was a status symbol. Yet, through prodigious talent, Harriet Scott and her younger sister Helena became esteemed as professional artists, brilliant natural history illustrators and meticulous specimen collectors. Contemporaries hailed their contribution to late colonial natural science, yet they were mostly forgotten until the twenty-first century. Extract from The dictionary of Sydney written by Catie Gilchrist 2015
