For many centuries artists, scientists, explorers and amateur naturalists have captured the amazing world of animals, plants, minerals and fossils. A number of beautiful and important oil paintings form a small but integral part of the Natural History Museum Library’s art collection. The Museum’s oil paintings date from the seventeenth century to the present day. They are a rich resource for artists, historians, picture researchers and anyone interested in the artist’s view of the natural world. The collection comprises depictions of flora and fauna, as well as portraits of the key people of their time who contributed to our understanding of the world around them. Paintings in the collection include Roelandt Savery’s image of the Dodo, dating back to the seventeenth century; John Gerrard Keulemans' nineteenth-century depiction of Bustards, the Museum’s largest painting; and an eighteenth-century portrait of Sir Hans Sloane, attributed to Stephen Slaughter.