The first painting of the red panda (Ailurus fulgens) in Europe? Natural history and artistic patronage in early nineteenth-century India

Throughout the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, British East India Company officials, based in the Indian subcontinent, amassed huge collections of natural history images. One of the largest collections, consisting of many thousands of individual paintings commissioned mainly from Indian artists between 1790 and 1823, was formed by Major-General Thomas Hardwicke. Some of these later formed the basis of John Edward Gray’s Illustrations of Indian zoology, but the vast majority remained unpublished. This paper focuses on one of these images, a detailed watercolour of the red panda ( Ailurus fulgens), painted to accompany a scientific description of the species which Hardwicke sent from Bengal to the Linnean Society of London in 1820. The painting pre-dates Frédéric Cuvier’s description of the animal by four years, and is almost certainly the first image of the red panda to have arrived in Europe. This paper sets the painting in the context of Hardwicke’s career as a naturalist and private patron of Indian artists, highlighting both his role as an early investigator of Indian zoology and the importance of “Company Art” in the accrual of scientific information.

The Continuing Relevance of George L. Mosse to the Study of Nationalism

This article explores four aspects of George L. Mosse’s legacy in the field of nationalism. First, it examines his wrestling with the normative complexities of nationalism, reflected in his horror of integralist nationalism (exemplified in fascism) that was in tension with his sympathy with liberal Zionism. Second, it discusses Mosse’s innovative anthropological approach to nationalism as a form of culture that aligns him with the ethno-symbolic school of nationalism, associated with Anthony D. Smith. A third contribution was his pioneering studies of the rituals of war commemoration and their changing forms as central to national legitimation. Finally, Mosse has been recognised by leading feminists as an important early investigator of sexuality as it relates to the construction of repressive national codes of respectability. What links these topics is Mosse’s tendency to view nationalism as reinforcing the coercive aspects of modern industrial societies. In none of these areas was Mosse a systematic thinker, but the interdisciplinary character of his work and his concern with fundamental problems of identity continues to inspire research into these issues.

Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717): an early investigator of parasitoids and phenotypic plasticity

In a time when science and technology were almost exclusively dominated by men, the European naturalist and biological illustrator, Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717), studied arthropods, particularly American and European insects. rough careful observations, she documented and lavishly depicted phenomena that today we call parasitoidism and phenotypic plasticity, making her one of the first to inquire into these topics. Merian's legacy emphasizes the inextricable link between the environment and organisms.