David Stuart ‘Australian botany: the Vienna connection’

Some 2,000 of Ferdinand Bauer‘s original pencil sketches and detailed drawings of Australian plants, animals and marine life are archived in the Natural History Museum (NHM), Vienna.  As the natural history illustrator on Flinders' circumnavigation of Australia in 1802-03, Bauer’s work is now recognised in Australia.  Just as significant, however, was its impact in Europe, conveying in extraordinary detail and accuracy the unique biodiversity of our continent.  His work, which included an extensive herbarium from his antipodean travels, was to become a source for some of the major botanical works of the 19^th century, including those of Bentham and Darwin.

The NHM has identified over 20,000 botanical specimens from Australia in its holdings, but believes the total is much higher – the result of the Hapsburg policy of promoting botanical research and the collections left to the Museum by leading German-speaking botanists (e.g. von Mueller). Its archives include the records of several other visitors from Vienna’s imperial period, such as the botanical entrepreneur Baron von Huegel and Alpine explorer Lotsky.

The Austrian National Library also holds originals of several significant publications featuring Australian flora and fauna from the late 18th and early 19th centuries, from French as well as German-language sources.

Perhaps the most unexpected collection is made up of hundreds of Australian trees and shrubs, under the care of the staff of the Federal Gardens, which has its origins in the late 18^th century imperial collections.

Biography

David Stuart was Australia's Ambassador to Austria and five other Central European and Balkan countries from August 2012 until October 2016.  In a diplomatic career spanning 37 years, he spent over seven years in the United Nations in New York and was also posted in Washington, Jakarta and Madrid.

Aware of Ferdinand Bauer's importance in Australian botanical history, David’s engagement with the Museum of Natural History (NHM) when he arrived in Vienna led to the Museum’s first-ever public exhibition devoted to Bauer's work, held in August 2015.  This laid the way for further collaboration between the NHM and Australian counterparts, notably the State Library of NSW’s November 2017 exhibition, ‘Painting by numbers’.