Remembering Nature’s Long-Forgotten Illustrators : A new book series is resurrecting depictions by Sarah Stone, George Abbot and others.

John James Audubon, the American naturalist, is famous for his bird paintings. But who has ever heard of Sarah Stone or George Abbot?

Stone and Abbot were among the earliest illustrators of America’s wildlife. But for more than a century, they’ve been recognized by only a handful of specialists.

The Natural History Museum in London, which has half a million works illustrating nature, is resurrecting the pair and other unfamiliar artists in a series of 11 projected books called “Art of Nature.”

“The books will be fundamental reading for historians of natural history and art, not least for the fact that some of the creatures depicted are now extinct or very rare,” said Neil Chalmers, the museum’s director.

“The museum has the best natural-history art collection in the world, almost totally hidden away and unknown. We want to bring it out to be enjoyed,” he said.

Abbot, a lawyer’s son, left England in 1773 when he was 22 and spent the rest of his life in Virginia and Georgia collecting and painting specimens for clients in Europe and America.

“Abbot went to America long before Audubon produced his now-celebrated birds,” said Pamela Gilbert, author of one of the series’ first books, “John Abbot: Birds, Butterflies and Other Wonders.”

“For nearly 67 years, he worked quietly and meticulously to supply collectors and other naturalists with specimens and exquisite illustrations of birds, insects and plants. His work was in constant demand throughout his long life, yet by the end of the 19th century he was almost unknown in scientific circles,” said Gilbert, a former librarian at the museum.

“Abbot’s name appeared in only one scientific publication, but it was he who took Alexander Wilson, known as the father of American ornithology, on collecting expeditions and supplied him with bird skins, data and illustrations,” she said.

Abbot, who recorded that the bald eagle was already uncommon, managed to continue his studies through the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, but complained of interference with his work by the “mad and destructive ambition of the rulers of the world.”

Thousands of insects and hundreds of birds he collected were lost in shipwrecks and fires, but he never gave up. He died poor in Georgia at the age of 89.

Stone, who was born about 1760 and died in 1844, drew from specimens sent back to England.

“There is little to go on about Sarah, although we have got her family tree with the help of a descendant,” said Christine E. Jackson, a researcher of bird illustrators who wrote the series book “Sarah Stone: Natural Curiosities from the New World.”

Stone started painting for pleasure but was soon asked to depict the contents of a London museum owned by Sir Ashton Lever, a megalomaniac collector who gathered birds, insects, mammals, fish, lizards, fossils, minerals, shells, corals and ethnographic artifacts from exploratory voyages, including those of Capt. James Cook.

“Some of these were the first ever recorded,” Jackson said.

“When the museum’s contents were auctioned over 65 days in 1806, they became scattered through museums in Europe, North America and Australia or were lost so that Sarah’s drawings became scientifically valuable,” she said. “They are often the only remaining record of specimens used by scientists in the 18th century to describe new species, some of which are now extinct.”

Natural-history illustration in America starts with the first Europeans arriving and being thrilled by animals and plants they saw for the first time.

John White, an artist employed by Sir Walter Raleigh, landed at Roanoke Island off North Carolina in 1585. His drawings include birds, fish, insects and plants, as well as his better-known ones of Native American life on the Atlantic coast.

Dead birds, insects, plants and other specimens sent back across the Atlantic excited scientists, who organized expeditions to discover more and engaged artists to go with them.

They and others who stayed home to depict what was sent back found a ready market for their work at exhibitions the public paid to see and from publishers. The original drawings were bought by collectors or ended up in museums. As a result, many have been out of sight for generations.

The books on Stone and Abbot are published in London by Merrell Holberton in association with the Natural History Museum. They are also available from the University of Washington Press in Seattle. They cost $45 each.

The remaining nine are still being compiled.