Page 49 - La Naturaleza como inspiración

human anatomy; 1,646 of vegetables and fungi; 223 of rocks, minerals and fossils; 460 of costumes and customs; 30 portraits of famous naturalists; and sev- en books containing engravings or plates, two unpub- lished manuscripts, 386 plant samples, 149 mounted animal skins and 12 artificial flowers. The catalogue includes references to 177 authors. The drawings and engravings are distributed throughout the auction catalogue, so that drawings are found in the three parts into which the catalogue is divided.
PURCHASE OF THE COLLECTION
On 19 February 1785, Pedro Franco Dávila (1711– 1786),4 founder and director of the Royal Cabinet of Natural History, which opened in 1776, received an official letter from the Count of Floridablanca, the prime minister under Charles III. In this letter Igna- cio de Asso (1742–1814), the Spanish consul in Am- sterdam, gave notice of the auction of the collection, which Dávila already knew about, and recommended that he should purchase it for the Royal Cabinet. Of particular interest were the naturalist illustrations, the artistic and scientific importance of which he described as follows:
“[...] in my view there is no equivalent collec- tion of this nature [...]. This collection appears to be worthy of the King for the Royal Cabinet that everyone in Europe believes in a few years shall be the best that is known.”5
Dávila replied to Floridablanca without delay, stating that, of the thousands of items in the auc- tion catalogue, several would be very suitable for the Royal Cabinet. He believed it would be very interesting to purchase the 160 “portfolios with de- signs”, as well as the mounted quadrupeds and birds, precious stones, shells and any object that De Asso considered “rare”.
Floridablanca complied with the wishes of both and on 6 March ordered Asso to go ahead with the purchase. By this time, however, several of the
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as my resources and circumstances allowed, at- tempted to find beautiful drawings [...] and added many other drawings that were my work.”3 He stat- ed that his collection should be interpreted “as an atlas of countries, cities, towns and villages, similar to a general atlas or an album of plants, animals and minerals”. He even mentioned that he would be responsible for performing the tasks required to cre- ate a paper museum: “cut, paste, place, draw, adapt to an attractive format.” In short, he defined his collection as a “cabinet of graphic material”.
In contrast to the established tradition, the cata- logue contains a detailed description of nearly all the individual items, which were only rarely combined in lots. It comprises a total of 7,682 works: 1,823 draw- ings and 5,859 engravings. There are over 6,000 draw- ings and engravings of animals, including those of the