Rough Leatherjacket

John Turnbull

Edgar Ravenswood Waite

No attribution for the painting is given in White's Journal of a Voyage to New South Wales, and Smith's A Specimen of the Botany of New Holland attributes it to White. Salkin, has suggested that "these were probably done by the convict artist Thomas Watling" and this is supported by a set of paintings of the Journal plates by Watling that are held by the Natural History Museum, London. However, Helen Hewson states in Australia: 300 years of botanical illustration that "it is thought by some that Thomas Watling, a convict artist of some ability, may have done the original artwork, but he did not arrive in the colony until late in 1792.... John Calaby believes that White had Watling copy the plates as published in the Journal for practice, because Watling was trained in landscape painting not natural history painting." [adapted from File:The Banksia (John White).jpg]