Eleazar Albin (known from 1708 - c.1742) was an English naturalist and watercolourist illustrator who wrote and illustrated a number of books including A Natural History of English Insects (1720), A Natural History of Birds (1731-38) and The Natural History of Spiders and other Curious Insects (1736).
Nothing is known of his early life, though he may have been German-born and claimed to have been in Jamaica in 1701. In 1708 he is known to have been married and living in Piccadilly, London.
According to autobiographical details in A Natural History of English Insects, Albin taught watercolour painting before being instructed in natural history by silk weaver and naturalist Joseph Dandridge.
References
- Peter Osborne, "Albin, Eleazar (d. 1742?)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 23 July 2007
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