Ferdinand Bauer is seen by many as the greatest natural history painter of all time. Hand-picked by Joseph Banks, in 1801-1805 Bauer accompanied Matthew Flinders during his circumnavigation of Australia, and lived in New South Wales and Norfolk Island. Already celebrated in Europe for the precision and beauty of his paintings, it was during this commission that Bauer perfected the technique of sketching and colour-coding in the field, and then colouring later — painting by numbers.

This fascinating new study of Bauer's work includes reproductions of never-before-published works from collections in Europe and Australia. Written by one of the world's foremost botanical scholars, Painting by Numbers reveals Bauer's innovative colour-coding technique for the first time.