| Administrative History | The majority of 'folios 5 and 6' are drawings of specimens in the fossil fish cabinets of lifelong friends and palaeontologists, Sir Phillip Egerton and William Willoughby Cole, 3rd Earl of Enniskillen. The series has its origins as the artwork commissioned by Louis Agassiz as part of the research for his 'Recherches sur les Poissons Fossiles' (1833-1844) and 'Monographie des Poissons Fossiles du Vieux Grès Rouge' (1844-1845), however in order to help Agassiz defray the costs of such an expensive undertaking, the artists' time (and therefore the drawings themselves) were paid for by Egerton and Enniskillen on the understanding that they would become their property once the images were copied onto lithographic stones.
After Agassiz's departure for the USA in 1846, Egerton continued to commission Joseph Dinkel to draw specimens from both men's fossil cabinets (although there are a few images from other collections) to illustrate later scientific papers, principally Egerton's 'Palichthyologic Notes' series which was published in the Society's 'Quarterly Journal' between 1848-1857 and intended as an addenda to Agassiz's fish works, and his similarly themed fossil fish descriptions in the 'Memoirs of the Geological Survey...illustrative of British Organic Remains', from 1852-1872.
Although, as mentioned above, the Egerton and Enniskillen drawings were supposed to revert back to the ownership of the two patrons, there were and are still a number of images from their collections in the other series connected with Agassiz's fossil fish works - LDGSL/613-615. In those series there are gaps on some of the sheets which appear to indicate 'missing' drawings, particularly in LDGSL/613. However from the pencil notes on the mounts, many appear to be images from the Egerton and Enniskillen collections, and therefore they were likely to be the drawings requested to be removed from the collection by Enniskillen in 1849 (see Council Minutes, 2 May 1849).
Based on the reference to the donations in the QJGS, Egerton and Enniskillen each had in their possession the drawings of the other's collection. |