1881-1888
Maker: Gould / Hart
Antique hand-colored print of a black capped catbird from The Birds of New Guinea and the Adjacent Papuan Islands: Including many New Species recently discovered in Australia by J. E. Gould / W. Hart. This exquisitely detailed and suptuously colored print comes from one of the preeminent ornithology books of the 19th Century. It was first published in 25 parts with 320 plates, and was Gould's last major work. Gould died on 3 February 1881 shortly after the publication of the 12th part of the planned 25. The remaining 13 parts were edited or written by Sharpe and illustrated by Hart. This plate was engraved by Hart, thus we believe it was printed between 1881 and 1888. Very good to excellent condition. Measures approx. 21.5 x 14.5 inches to the paper edges.
From the Royal Collection Trust: John Gould was born in Lyme Regis on the Dorset coast of England in 1804 but was brought up in Surrey and later Windsor, where his father was one of the gardeners at the royal castle. The young Gould taught himself taxidermy from an early age and soon established a skill for the craft. Following a brief 18-month stint as gardener at Ripley Hall in Yorkshire, in 1824, he moved to London to establish a shop in the city. The taxidermy enterprise was a successful one and Gould counted important public figures, including George IV (for whom he stuffed a pet giraffe in 1826), among his clients. In 1828, he won a competition to become taxidermist at the museum of the Zoological Society of London and eventually became the curator of the museum where he developed connections with some of the most prominent naturalists of the day and received specimens from around the world to preserve and prepare for display. He was also noted for his own knowledge of ornithology and in 1836 assisted Charles Darwin in understanding the specimens collected from the Beagle voyage to the Galapagos, demonstrating that the birds collected were not different species as Darwin initially thought, but varieties of the same species, thus inspiring his revolutionary theory of natural selection. Gould began to publish fine ornithological volumes from 1830. They are among the most famous and important 'bird-books' of the nineteenth century and the volumes in the Royal Library were subscribed to by Prince Albert and Queen Victoria. Later in life, Gould worked on publishing volumes on the spectacularly diverse birds of New Guinea. Birds of Paradise are included in astounding detail but Gould died before the work, and another mammoth seven-volume work on the birds of Asia begun in 1850, could be finished. The remaining text was completed by Richard Bowdler Sharpe.
Genuine Antique Print from 1881-1888
Item Number: NAT1337