R.D.Fitzgerald’s Australian Orchids from the MRAG Collection

Australian Orchids, Part 1, Volume 2, 1884, Robert David Fitzgerald (1830-1892).

R.D.Fitzgerald’s Australian Orchids is an exhibition of the beautifully detailed and coloured lithographs by surveyor and naturalist Robert David Fitzgerald. The lithographs have been selected from the detailed books R.D. Fitzgerald’s Australian Orchids which belong to the Maitland Regional Art Gallery Collection.

Fitzgerald published seven volumes of the Australian Orchids between July 1875 and October 1882. These books were published with lithographer Arthur James Stopps (1833-1931).  Each painstaking detailed lithograph plate was hand coloured by various artists from Fitzgerald’s own coloured sample sheets.

R.D Fitzgerald’s lithographs are a tribute to the professionalism, art, skill and scientific expertise of Botanical illustration in the second half of the nineteenth century in Australia.