Rare Gould Birds Of Great Britain Hand Colored FOLIO Print 1870: GREAT SNIPE
Item History & Price
C I R Q L A ROriginal antique prints, books, maps and atlasesName Of PrintGALLINAGO MAJOR. GREAT SNIPE.Author/ArtistJohn Gould.Date of PublicationPublished London between 1862-73.Type of PrintOriginal hand colored lithograph (with original coloring).Size of ImageFolio: ~14 3/4" X 21 1/2".ConditionIn overall very good to excellent condition. The descriptive text page will accompany.DescriptionWe are proud to be able to offer a fine original hand colored lithograph by... John Gould (1804-1881) from his masterful work entitled The Birds Of Great Britain which was published between 1862-73. In the world of great ornithological works, this one stands very tall indeed and it is arguably Gould’s masterpiece - the culmination of a life spent in the world of nature and of many years experience in bird art and 19th century publishing. Fine Bird Books accords it 3 stars, which is a ringing endorsement. The original hand coloring is absolutely superb, skillful beyond belief, intense and vibrant, and the pinnacle of such art. In short, it is as good as it can ever be, and a delight to the print collector.
John Gould was a self-taught English naturalist, a gifted artist and a talented taxidermist. A man of vision with a talent for organization and administration, he founded an empire for ornithological illustration, publishing more than forty large folio volumes. These works contained over 3, 000 plates, all superbly drawn and meticulously hand colored. The first work appeared in 1831 and the last in 1888, seven years after Gould's death.
His was a true Horatio Alger story, beginning with humble origins as the son of a gardener. He learned taxidermy at an early age, becoming a taxidermist for the Zoological Society of London in 1827. During this same year he married Elizabeth Coxen, his true match in every way. Intelligent, gifted and enterprising, Elizabeth ardently embraced her husband’s goals. Although Gould sketched the outline designs for the plates they created together, many of the finished drawings, transfers to lithographic stone and hand coloring were her work. She was an enthusiastic collaborator and contributor every step of the way. Sadly, this partnership was tragically cut short by the premature death of Elizabeth at the age of 37.Gould’s well-deserved reputation as the most respected publisher of 19th century ornithological texts owes much to his extraordinary ability to recognize, recruit and direct great talent. Without a doubt, Gould was the right man in the right time. In the not-to-distant future, photographic reproduction would forever change publishing and cause the demise of these superb hand-colored works. The lavish production of the published image had reached its zenith in the late 1800s and Birds of Great Britain is one of the very last of such fine works. In every aspect, quality ruled the day. Printing had become far advanced and fine paper of large dimension was plentiful. Vibrant new colors and aniline dyes replaced the unstable, fragile and sometimes toxic colors of bygone days.References: Anker p. 60; "Fine Bird Books"; Nissen 372; Sauer 23; Tree "The Ruling Passion of John Gould", p. 207; Wood p. 365; Zimmer p. 261.We are fortunate enough to have acquired a large collection of these of these fine images and will be listing them in the ensuing weeks/monthsThank you for looking and please be sure and look at our other auctions for other fine works by Audubon from the first as well as the 1860 editions of the Birds Of America. We also have other architectural, natural history plates as well as original maps, all guaranteed original. We do not use the eBay check-out system for invoicing so it is not necessary to email us at auction end. You will receive an email from Paypal letting you know the particular payment options available to you. We will also send you an email summarizing your winning bids along with one combined postal charge. We will email you this summary within 24 hours after the auction's end. Cirqlar is a SquareTrade seller in good standing and we will do everything we can make this a positive experience for you. We don't hold checks for clearance (we have yet to receive a bad check after over 25, 000 transactions!). Again, we will be happy to combine purchases to save on your shipping costs. News flash! We are now using USPS for our North American shipments. Shipments are easy to track, and, well, frankly we have only lost one singular package out of the tens of thousands of packages we have sent. Good job USPS! If you are one of our International friends, please contact us with your particulars (name of country, insurance requirements if any) so that we might get as accurate a quote as possible to get your purchase to you in a timely fashion. Please note that we now have (finally, mercifully) a legitimate "about me" section where you can find more information about who we are and what we do as well as more tips on collecting prints and the various types of printing techniques that have been used over the years. In addition, we have hundreds of rare prints and colorplate books, maps and atlases at set prices. We have recently been fortunate enough to acquire, for example, the original watercolors from Lewin's "Birds of Great Britain". We also have listed several prints from Shaw and Nodder's "The Naturalist's Miscellany", flower prints from Curtis' "Flora Londinensis", P.J. Redoute's "Les Liliacees". Please also check out our ebay listings for some phenomenal Abbeville edition elephant folio restrikes of Audubon's "Birds Of America" which are what many refer to as the preeminent 20th century facsimile edition of this important work. We will be updating this frequently. We are committed to offering the very best antique prints available with over the top superior service. Click "here" for more information about us. Thank you for looking.
00009
