Cape Ram Possibly 1778

Robert Jacob Gordon created this delicate watercolor drawing of a Cape Ram, somewhere in the late 18th century. He rendered this animal in watercolor, with meticulous pen and ink details. The drawing’s precision, and even its layout, speaks to the way scientific inquiry was undertaken in the 1700s. The ink inscriptions and the drawing itself can be viewed as acts of data capture. But it also shows the artist's engagement with the animal. We get a sense of this ram not just as a resource or an object of study, but as a living being. Consider the context. Gordon was a military man and explorer working for the Dutch East India Company, a vast mercantile empire. His artwork reflects the way that European expansion was intertwined with the development of natural science. Works like this straddle the line between art and craft. They prompt us to consider how the act of making is linked to a wider world of labor, politics, and the consumption of natural resources.