|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
[ Audubon (folio) | Audubon (first octavo) | Audubon (second octavo) | Catesby | Christian Knowledge ]
[ Daniell | Doughty | Edwards | Gentry | Gould | Lewin | Malherbe | Miller | Pennant | Pope | Selby | Wilson ]
|
|
||||
|
|
||||
|
|
||||
|
|
||||
|
|
||||
|
|
||||
|
|
||||
|
|
||||
|
|
From a delightful set of prints from Albin's A Natural History of Birds, one of the first British bird books with colored plates. Plates were drawn either by Albin or his daughter Elizabeth, and while not noted for their scientific accuracy, their early date and charming appearance makes them very collectable. The images are copper engravings which were hand colored by Eleazer and Elizabeth "from the Originals, drawn from the live Birds." This is a delightful example of early eighteenth century ornithology. $145
This ornithology is one of the rarest to be found complete because even when it was issued, the plates were considered obsolete for science and primitive as art. Thus, not many copies were sold. Mullens and Swann's Bibliography of British Ornithology praises the art and states that the dating of each plate is very useful. Over the years these inheritors of the concepts of George Edwards, Marc Catesby and the Count de Buffon have taken on an aura of folk art in their own right. They are clear, bright, and delightful.
Based on Francois Levaillant's Histoire naturelle des Oiseaux d'Afrique, first published in Paris 1796-1808. 9 1/4 x 7 1/4 (platemark). Etchings. Original hand color. These plates are from a rare and never completed London edition with these dated 1805-1808. No record of these prints is found in Sitwell or Anker.
Levaillant is credited with being the best recorder of exotic birds until the advent of John Gould and his colleagues in the mid-nineteenth century. The artist was Johann Lebrecht Reinold who worked closely with the editor to open the world of African ornithology to Europeans. Sitwell records copying but incomplete editions in Nuremberg, 1797-1802, Halle in 1798, and Amsterdam in 1812. These prints were engraved by Pass and Reynolds in London and published by J. Wilkes. The misnumbering is evidence that these were trial printings and not part of a finished work. The quality of the engraving and hand coloring is superb.
These attractive birds, mostly native to South America, were illustrated by Dutch born Smit (1836-1929). Joseph Smit relocated in 1866 with his wife and family to London where he met Joseph Wolf (1820-1899),one of the world's finest animal painters. They formed both a friendship and a collaboration, illustrating many bird and mammal books together during the 1870s through the 1890s, with Wolf doing the drawing and Smit the lithography. After Wolf's death Smit worked less on bird books, becoming the leading mammal illustrator in England for the rest of his productive life.
Philip Lutley Sclater (1829-1913) was an English lawyer and zoologist, expert ornithologist, and for 42 years the Secretary of the Zoological Society of London.
These beautiful illustrations of Cassowaries, primarily found in Australia, were drawn by Dutch born John Gerrard Keulemans (1842-1912). Keulemans, a skilled scientific artist in late 19th-century England, became one of the best-known and most prolific bird illustrators in a world exploding with discoveries, descriptions, and publications of species of animals and plants from all over the globe. Excelling at draftsmanship, his consistently high standard of scientific precision and accuracy was so widely acknowledged and appreciated that an extraordinary number of the major ornithological monographs published between 1870 and 1910 contained illustrations by Keulemans as artist, lithographer or both, as in this case, illustrating an article by the famed naturalist, financier and member of Parliament Lionel Walter Rothschild (1868-1937), 2nd Baron Rothschild.
[ Audubon (folio) | Audubon (first octavo) | Audubon (second octavo) | Catesby | Christian Knowledge ]
[ Daniell | Doughty | Edwards | Gentry | Gould | Lewin | Malherbe | Miller | Pennant | Pope | Selby | Wilson ]
Go to page with reference books on ornithological illustration
For more information call, write, fax or e-mail to:
8441 Germantown Avenue
Philadelphia, PA 19118 USA
(215) 242-4750 [Phone]
(215) 242-6977 [Fax]
PhilaPrint@PhilaPrintShop.com 
©The Philadelphia Print Shop, Ltd. 2013
Bird print gift box