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In 1947 volunteers formed a group called the Clements Library Associates (CLA) to raise money in support of acquisitions. Today all donors of financial gifts and historical materials are included in the CLA. Thank you so much for supporting the Clements through this site. Please note that the deductible portion of your gift does not include the fair market value of the item. However, due to a donor endowed fund that covers Clements publishing projects, the entire amount will be used to further the mission of the Clements Library!

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Sketches from Nature made in Upper Canada in the Years 1803, 1804 and 1805 by E. Walsh MD, 49th Regt. (Reproduced on individual sheets.)
Sketches from Nature made in Upper Canada in the Years 1803, 1804 and 1805 by E. Walsh MD, 49th Regt. (Reproduced on individual sheets.)

Introduction by Clayton Lewis, Curator of Graphics. Edward Walsh Sketchbook, University of Michigan, William L. Clements Library, 2007. (Portfolio of 11 pages).

Excerpt from the Introductory Essay:

“Prior to photography, precise rendering of the landscape with pencil and watercolor was a skilled discipline expected of trained military officers. To British Surgeon Edward Walsh, M.D. (1756-1832), this training meshed with his poetic, artistic, and scientific interests typical of the educated gentleman-soldier of the era. While stationed in North America, Walsh created a series of pictures that have unique documentary and artistic value to scholarship of what was then considered the Northwest. Walsh described the British control over part of North America by carefully documenting the key positions and checkpoints that defined the imperial foothold on Upper Canada. His sketches (done on the spot) also communicate his personal involvement with these places, ongoing relationships with the native population, and great interest in the natural world…

At some point in time the Walsh watercolors done in North America were separated. There are examples very similar to the Clements set in the collections of Library and Archives Canada and the Royal Ontario Museum. Several original Walsh watercolors reproduced as prints in the 1810s are now missing. The set now at the Clements surfaced in 1939 as a bound sketchbook in the hands of John Ward, an antiquities dealer in London, England. Ward had failed to sell the sketches to Henry Ford and offered them to the Clements for $1,000, a substantial sum during the Depression. A loan from The Detroit Friends of the Clements Library, a precursor to the present-day Clements Library Associates, made the purchase possible. Ten of the views in this group have been reproduced at actual size and with great accuracy of color and detail by Stinehour Press in Lunenberg, Vermont.”

—Clayton Lewis, Curator of Graphics

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