Cretaceous Life of New Jersey,

1877

Hawkins was both a prominent natural scientist and a trained sculptor, best known for the two dozen life-sized sculptures of dinosaurs he made for the first World’s Fair, held in London in 1851. Created in collaboration with the pioneering paleontologist Sir Richard Owen, these were the world’s first models of dinosaurs based on (recently excavated) fossil evidence and the foremost scientific data available. While the creatures may seem ludicrous to the modern eye, the sculptures were an invaluable resource for early paleontologists. In 1874, James McCosh, president of what was then the College of New Jersey, invited Hawkins to Princeton to work on dinosaur reconstructions and to paint a series of canvases depicting prehistoric life forms in naturalistic surroundings. Princeton’s fifteen surviving canvases, of which this is one, constitute the earliest known representations of dinosaurs and prehistoric life as they were understood at the time.