William Farquhar Collection of Natural History Drawings

William Farquhar Collection of Natural History Drawings
Top left: gambier; top right: black pepper; bottom left: wild nutmeg (Gymnacranthera farquhariana); bottom right: durian
Artist	Probably two anonymous Chinese artists (from Macau)
Year	1819 (1819)–1823 (1823)
Medium	Watercolour on Paper
Dimensions	Various
Location	National Museum of Singapore, Singapore
Owner	GK Goh Holdings

The William Farquhar Collection of Natural History Drawings consists of 477 watercolour botanical drawings of plants and animals of Malacca and Singapore by unknown Chinese (probably Cantonese) artists that were commissioned between 1819 and 1823 by William Farquhar (26 February 1774 – 13 May 1839). The paintings were meant to be of scientific value with very detailed drawings, except for those of the birds which have text going beyond their original purpose. For each drawing, the scientific and/or common name of the specimen in Malay, and, occasionally, in English, was written in pencil. A translator also penned the Malay names in Jawi using ink. The paper used was normally European paper framed by a blue frame while some have no frames at all suggesting there are two artist.

During his tenure as Resident and Commandant of Singapore, Farquhar hired a group of professionally trained Chinese artists from Macau (as described by Munshi Abdullah ) to paint watercolours of the flora and fauna of the Malay Peninsula. Farquhar donated these in eight volumes to the Museum of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland on 17 June 1826. In 1937, the Society lent six of the volumes to the Library of the British Museum (Natural History) (now the Library of the Natural History Museum), retaining the two volumes of botanical drawings in its own library. In 1991 the Natural History Museum returned the works to the Society for valuation, and on 20 October 1993 the Society offered them for sale by auction at Sotheby's in London, where they were acquired by Goh Geok Khim, founder of the brokerage firm GK Goh, for S$3 million. Goh donated the drawings to the National Museum of Singapore in 1995. As at 2011, the collection was believed to be worth at least $11 million. In 2011, 70 works from the collection were placed on permanent display in the Goh Seng Choo Gallery of the museum, named for Goh's father.