vol. 28 no. 3
spring 2011
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by Carter C. Hudgins, Ph.D., Director of Preservation and Education In 1969, a dramatic discovery was made in Charleston in the attic of 25 East Battery, home of the recently deceased Charlotta Drayton. Family members found a leather portfolio containing original watercolors of birds together with a frontispiece with the name John Drayton and the date 1733. At first, the family thought that these watercolors were completed by John Drayton himself. Further research, however, confirmed that they were completed in 1733 by George Edwards (1694 - 1773), the father of British ornithology.
Thanks to the stewardship of seven generations of the Drayton family, these rare works are some of the oldest George Edwards watercolors to survive in North America. The watercolors include extinct birds such as the Carolina Parakeet and the controversial Ivory Billed Woodpecker, along with common American birds and exotic species representing natural history around the globe. As Margaret Pritchard, curator of prints, maps and wallpaper at Colonial Williamsburg has remarked, “The watercolors that George Edwards painted for John Drayton place him among a continued on page 4