State Library Victoria

Louise Anemaat, author and executive director at the State Library of New South Wales, unveils a collection of six bound volumes from a private aristocratic library in England, filled with 745 botanical and zoological drawings dating from the 1790s. Half of these drawings have not been seen since the 1940s; the existence of the other half was completely unrecorded. The drawings are evidence of the fascination Europe felt for the startlingly new and unfamiliar natural world of Terra Australis, and were the tools by which knowledge about Australia found its way into books, museums and the European consciousness.

About Louise Anemaat
Louise Anemaat is Executive Director, Library and Information Services, at the State Library of New South Wales. Louise publishes and lectures widely on the Library’s collections, and has worked closely on the acquisition, processing and curation of the manuscript and pictures collections over many years. She is the author of Natural curiosity, unseen art of the First Fleet (NewSouth Publishing, 2014), an analysis of the traditions of natural history art production in Australia and Britain during the 18th and 19th centuries.

Village Roadshow Theatrette
Entry 3, via La Trobe Street

Wheelchair accessible
Bookings required