Ferdinand Lucas Bauer ( 1760 - 1826)

Bauer was born in Austria to an artistic family, his father was court painter to the Prince of Liechtenstein. He and his brothers were given lessons in plant collecting and drawing from a young age. His elder brother, Franz, became the first botanical artist at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in London, England. Ferdinand was the botanical draughtsman to botanist Robert Brown on the Investigator voyage. He sketched the plants and animals they saw and collected. Some of his finished pieces were published in the first detailed account of Australasia’s natural history, Illustrationes Florae Novae Hollandiae (1813). Bauer’s drawings were unique in their morphological and chromatic accuracy. He studied collections and sketches, and sought the expertise of Brown, to produce sophisticated pieces. It is thought that Bauer made 2,060 field drawings during the HMS Investigator voyage, the majority of which are held by the Museum of Natural History in Vienna, Austria.