Printed Matter
While the Charleston landscape has inspired our collection since its inception, we’re far from the first to be charmed by its natural wonders. For example, three hundred years ago this month, naturalist Mark Catesby arrived in the Lowcountry and began capturing the local flora and fauna in stunning detail through a series of vivid watercolors that enamored Europeans hungry for glimpses of the New World. 

Today, this incomparable trove endures at one of the city’s most intriguingly under-the-radar cultural institutions, The Charleston Library Society, affectionately referred to as ‘Charleston’s Living Room,’ where our Art Director first encountered it. In fact, she was so enthralled by the organization’s mission and offerings, a collection that includes first editions of Shakespeare, rare Elizabethan portraiture and correspondence from America’s founding fathers, that she recently completed an externship in its in-house bookbindery to fully absorb the preservation processes of their priceless materials. 

Years before Audubon popularized depictions of the American aviary, Catesby and his contemporaries created entire ecological surveys of the southeastern region leaving behind timeless works of beauty that continue to inspire generations of wildlife enthusiasts. 

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