Nathaniel Wallich (1786-1854) was born in Copenhagen. He obtained the diploma of the Royal Academy of Surgeons at Copenhagen in 1806 and was subsequently appointed Surgeon to the Danish settlement at Serampore, Bengal, in 1807. From 1817 he took a permanent post as Superintendent of the Calcutta Botanic Garden, and travelled widely in the Indian subcontinent. Wallich published two major works on the plants of the region, Tentamen Flora Nepalensis Illustratae (1824-26) and Plantae Asiaticae Rariories (1830-32). Due to ill-health, Wallich resigned his post in 1846 and retired to London, where he became Vice-President of the Linnean Society, of which he had been a fellow since 1818. Wallich remained in London until his death seven years later, aged 68.
The National (formerly the Scottish National Gallery) is the national art gallery of Scotland. It is located on The Mound in central Edinburgh, close to Princes Street. The building was designed in a neoclassical style by William Henry Playfair, and first opened to the public in 1859. The gallery houses Scotland's national collection of fine art, spanning Scottish and international art from the beginning of the Renaissance up to the start of the 20th century.