Pterodactyl and scimitar-toothed lion by Alfred Waterhouse (1875-1876)

In 1962, the Natural History Museum acquired a collection of pencil drawings of mammals, plants and other species – living and extinct – which now form part of the Library’s outstanding collection of drawings and paintings.

These drawings were not made to record specimens but as designs of flora and fauna with which to decorate the Museum building itself, in order to identify it as the first home for the natural history collections of the British Museum.

While the resemblance to species or genera represented may not be perfect, and the zoological and botanical value of the drawings limited, the point was to reflect the contents of the Museum, rather than to precisely replicate the collections within.

Each drawing is not only a fine piece of artwork, but a set of instructions for the sculptor, who had to turn the sketches into three-dimensional forms, true to the designs.

When he won the commission for the Natural History Museum, Alfred Waterhouse’s reputation was of a talented draughtsman and brilliant planner and constructor. He had no public reputation as an artist – only those who knew him would have been aware of his extraordinary talent with a pencil.

The drawings and resulting terracotta figures epitomise the world that the Museum both studies and exhibits to the public, and stand a distinctive works of art in their own right.