The Suffolk artist Mark Catesby travelled to Carolina, Florida and the Bahamas to make drawings of the flora and fauna. On his return to Britain, he published coloured etchings of these in a series of parts between 1729 and 1746. Catesby’s elegant study of the swallow-tail hawk was included in his first volume, which was dedicated to Queen Caroline for her ‘great Goodness in encouraging all sorts of Learning’. Purchased by George III in 1768 Cat. 177