Henry Augustus Ward (1834 to 1906) was an academic who had a variety of educational experiences including studies at various establishments in the United States and the Paris School of Mines (LAMBRECHT & QUENSTEDT 1938).

His practical knowledge comprised fieldwork in Europe and Africa. After his return to the United States in 1860 he became a professor of natural science at the University of Rochester, New York. In 1862 Ward set up a business to provide replicas of fossils and other natural history items now known as Ward’s Science.

Among the earliest catalogues of his enterprise there was a book of the casts of fossils available for purchase published in 1866. This extensive compilation is an important reference document or vade mecum of palaeontological illustration and a source of information on museum displays in the middle of the nineteenth century. Its green cover features the aureate giant sloth sketch visible above (WARD 1866).

In the catalogue Ward imagines a set of table models of the life-size reconstructions of large to giant fossil vertebrates that Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins made under the guidance of Richard Owen around 1853. These reconstructions still on display in the Crystal Palace Park, South London, are the first artistic representations of dinosaurs and other vanished creatures of Earth’s History of their size. They have been enjoyed by both younger and older generations for over a century.

In his catalogue Ward does not explain how the table models were made. That is why we do not know if they are derived from originally smaller clay models prepared by Hawkins as preliminary studies for his lif-size reconstructions or if they were taken freehand from the larger finished Crystal Palace sculptures or other Hawkins’ artistic sources. There is no evidence that Ward and Hawkins were in direct contact but can by no means be excluded. It can certainly be stated that the table models were perfectly suitable to teach the public and as a set comprising a small compendium of various representatives of prehistoric fauna (five plaster models depicting seven taxa) were very useful to educate students in the vanished lives on earth (DAVIDSON 2005).