The Museum Victoria Library rare books collection has acquired the beautifully illustrated three-volume limited edition Marsupials of Australia.
Artist Rosemary Woodford Ganf has been compared to renowned wildlife artists John Gould and John Audubon, both of whom are represented in the Museum’s Sciences and Rare Books collections. Ganf won the Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales’ Whitley Book Award for the best limited edition, for Volume Two of this work.
The illustrations are supported by authoritative scientific text by zoologists John Calaby and Tim Flannery. Each species is described by diagnosis, size, description, ecology, reproduction and distribution.
An original watercolour of Rosemary Woodford Ganf’s Toolache Wallaby was also purchased by the Sciences Department, adding to the relatively large collection of historic and contemporary scientific art depicting the fauna of the state.
This particular illustration was chosen because it represents a species which once inhabited western Victoria and eastern South Australia but is now extinct. It is of great relevance to Museum Victoria’s Science collections, as we have no representative skin or skeleton specimens of this recently extinct animal.
For more information about this publication, please contact Sandra Winchester, Museum Victoria Library.