Enfilade

From the Catesby Commemorative Trust:

Mark Catesby’s Third Centennial in America: Celebrating His Impact
Richmond, Washington, D.C., and Charleston, 4-9 November 2012

Attendees may purchase tickets for the Virginia, Washington, D.C. and Charleston days individually or as a package (ticket prices include tax-deductible contributions to the Catesby Commemorative Trust and hopefully other non-profits involved in the program). The following covers the program as it now stands and may be modified as appropriate. With the few exceptions noted, all locations and speakers are confirmed.

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Sunday, 4 November 2012 — Richmond

Accommodations at the four-star Omni Hotel

5:30 pm  Wilton House Museum

• Welcome by Laura Towers, President of NSCDA – VA
• Moderator: Robert Strohm, Executive Director, Wilton House Museum
• Introduction by Cynthia Neal, Producer/Director and showing of The Curious Mister Catesby (2008)
• The museum will display a concurrent exhibition of Catesby’s etchings (25 October 2012 — 3 February 2013)
• Cocktail reception

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Monday, 5 November 2012 — Richmond / Washington, D.C.

Wilton House Museum

9:00 am  Catesby’s Influences and Sources

• “Mark Catesby and His Botanical Forerunners,” Dr. Karen Reeds, Independent Scholar (scheduled)
• “William Dampier,” Diana and Michael Preston, authors of  A Pirate of Exquisite Mind: Explorer, Naturalist and Buccaneer: The Life of William Dampier
• “Maria Sibylla Merian: Pioneering Naturalist, Artist, and Inspiration for Catesby,” Florence F. J. M. Pieters, Faculty of Biology, University of Amsterdam, and Dr. Kay Etheridge, Professor of Biology, Gettysburg College

10:30  Break

10:45  Catesby’s World

• “England,” Dr. Janet Browne, Chair, Aramont Professor of the History of Science, Harvard University
• “Virginia,” Dr. Sarah Meacham, Associate Professor of History, Virginia Commonwealth University
• “Carolina,” Dr. Suzanne Linder Hurley, Independent Scholar, Davidson, NC
• “Bahamas,” Dr. Robert Robertson, Curator of Malacology, Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences

1:00  Lunch at the Commonwealth Club

2:30  Tour of the Kent-Valentine House, which has a large collection of Catesby’s etchings

Richmond locations will include floral arrangements of plants illustrated by Catesby

3:00  Chartered coach transfer to four-star Hotel Monaco in Washington, D.C.

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Tuesday, 6 November 2012 — Washington, D.C.  

 9:30 am  Smithsonian Institution Libraries, Baird Auditorium, Museum of Natural History. Baird sessions open for free to the public

Welcome: Senior Smithsonian and GCA officials

Moderator: Dr. Nancy Gwinn, Director, Smithsonian Institution Libraries

Catesby’s Art     

• “Catesby’s Drawings,” Henrietta McBurney Ryan, Keeper of Fine and Decorative Arts, Eton College, formerly Deputy Keeper, Royal Library, Windsor Castle, and author of a forthcoming book on Catesby’s original paintings
• “The Natural History: Its Printing and Publication,” Leslie Overstreet, Curator, Natural History Rare Books, Smithsonian Institution Libraries
• “Catesby’s Etchings: His Compositional Interests and the Birth of Environmental Science,” Dr. Amy Meyers, Director, Yale Center for British Art

12:00  Ticket holders’ viewing of the Smithsonian’s first edition of The Natural History and other rare natural history books; lunch at the Metropolitan Club

1:30  Catesby’s Science

• “Ornithology (including bird migration),” Shepard Krech III, Professor Emeritus, Brown University
• “Botany,” Dr. Steven A. Harris, Druce Curator of the Oxford University Herbaria (scheduled – possibly given by his delegate)
• “Zoology (other than ornithology),” Dr. Aaron Bauer, Professor & Gerald M. Lemole Chair in Integrative Biology, Villanova University
• “Catesby’s Economic and Ethnobotany,” Dr. W. Hardy Eshbaugh, Professor of Botany Emeritus, Miami University, Oxford, OH

6:00  United States Botanic Garden, Washington, D.C.

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Wednesday, 7 November 2012 – Washington, D.C. / Charleston

 Personal transportation to Charleston, SC to be arranged by attendees

Accommodation at the five-star Sanctuary Hotel, on Kiawah Island

Customized Kiawah Island Nature Tours

Banquet dinner at Kiawah Island with keynote speaker, Sir Ghillean Prance, FRS, Director (retired) of the Royal (Kew) Botanic Gardens, previously Research Director and Vice-President of the New York Botanical Garden as well as President of the UK Linnean Society, and currently Scientific Director of the Eden Project

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Thursday, 8 November 2012 — Charleston

Coach transfers from Kiawah to Charleston, within town, and return to Kiawah

9:30 am  Addlestone Library Rare Book Collection, College of Charleston

• Welcome to Charleston: The Honorable Joseph P. Riley, Jr., Mayor of Charleston
• Introduction of speakers: John Cay III, Chairman of Friends of the Addlestone Library
• “Catesby The Explorer,” Dr. James L. Reveal, Professor Emeritus, University of Maryland and Adjunct Professor of Plant Biology, Cornell University

10:30  Break

Catesby’s Impact on Natural History

• “Linnaeus and the Relevance of His Use of Catesby’s Botanical Work,” Dr. Charlie Jarvis, Botany Department, Natural History Museum, London
• “Linnaeus and His Use of Catesby’s Zoological Work,” Dr. Kraig Adler, Professor & Department Chair, Department of Neurology & Behavior, Cornell University
• “The Naturalists Who Came after Catesby,” Judith Magee, Special Collections Curator,  Library & Archives, Natural History Museum, London and author of Art and Nature: Three Centuries of Natural History Art from around the World

Opportunity to view a second edition Natural History, Alexander Wilson and Audubon double elephant folio (Leslie Overstreet will be available for all viewings of copies of the Natural History to point out their salient features; no two are exactly the same)

1:00  Gibbes Museum of Art

This section of the program honors the memory of Chris Hammond, long-term Director of the Trust to whom it owes much; truly a gentleman and a good friend.

Lunch in the museum garden; viewing the museum collections

3:00  The Charleston Library Society (founded in 1748)

• “The Bartram-Catesby Connection,” Joel T. Fry, Curator, Bartram’s Garden, Philadelphia
• “Catesby and Eighteenth-Century Gardening,” Mark Laird, Senior Lecturer, Department of Landscape Architecture, Harvard University
• Viewing of second and third editions of The Natural History

Visit to the Preservation Society of Charleston

6:00  Cocktail receptions at the historic Miles Brewton House and William Gibbes House

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Friday, 9 November 2012 – Charleston

Optional (currently being developed)

• Catesby-Country Immersion Tour at Middleton Place, including fresh-water swamp, salt marsh, rice fields, ruins of Catesby-era house, free flying demonstration by Charleston Center for Birds of Prey of raptors painted by Catesby plus viewing another first edition of Mark Catesby’s Natural History
• Boat tour of the ACE Basin (arrangements by KIGR)
• Tour of Colonial-Era Charleston Gardens (Preservation Society of Charleston) with an opportunity to see the Charleston Museum’s first edition Catesby’s and related materials
• Golf on Kiawah Island’s Ocean Course (site of the 2012 PGA)
• Kiawah Island Nature Tours