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John Laurens: An Artist Rediscovered In The Ethelind Pope Brown Collection, Nicole Alexandra Gerth

Theses and Dissertations

The Ethelind Pope Brown collection at the Irvin Department of Rare Books & Special Collections at the University of South Carolina contains thirty-two gouache paintings of south-eastern North American flora and fauna from the eighteenth century. Colonel John Laurens, a native South Carolinian from the eighteenth century, is the decided artist for the collection after appraisers and scholars confirmed that the works were painted by a local amateur artist. Historians respect Laurens for his abolitionist ideologies and his status as an officer under George Washington’s service, but his accomplishment as an amateur naturalist artist is not as well documented. From …