A couple of years ago, a small selection of the natural history drawings from the collection of William Farquhar was put on display; notable because they belonged to Singapore’s other founder and first resident, and also because of the window they provided into the wildlife of Singapore when much of the island was still jungle. If you missed that exhibition two years back, today you can see a larger selection of the drawings in the National Museum at the Goh Seng Choo Gallery.

Faerieimp, who visited the gallery last month writes:

A small portion was on display a couple of years back and now, the full set has found a permanent home in this small gallery. For now, it’s free admission to the public. Not all 477 commissioned works in the collection are displayed. Only 70 are brought out at any time with one annual rotation scheduled.

While you can stroll through the 70 drawings in a matter of 15 minutes, it would be nice to allocate a little more time to appreciate the history. We lingered over the drawings for a closer look. The techniques of the Chinese artists commissioned to do these paintings are most interesting. It’s a mix of Chinese brushwork (shade, texture and dotting) and Western watercolor dry-brush techniques which blend beautifully into the details of the veins of leaves and shades of color on the fruits, spices, porcupine quills, feathers and tree bark.

You can read her post here. With 70 drawings out at any one time, and 477 drawings in total, that’s about seven reasons to return to the museum every year!