Gould, John.

first edition, 5 volumes, folio (558 x 375mm.), 367 hand-coloured lithographed plates from drawings by Gould, Joseph Wolf, H.C. Richter and W. Hart, mostly lithographed by Richter and Hart, list of subscribers, lists of plates, nineteenth-century half morocco gilt, gilt edges, some occasional slight spotting affecting endpapers and some final text leaves (the plates generally clean), Tawny owl plate with minor surface abrasion, text leaf to Pallas's sandgrouse torn at inner margin

Fine Bird Books, p.78; Nissen IVB 372; Sauer 23; Wood, p.365; Zimmer, p.261

a clean copy. Gould’s first collaborative work with Josef Wolf. The German natural history painter Josef Wolf brought to Gould’s monographs a realistic vigour and sensibility of nature lacking in the work of many of Gould’s studio artists. “All of Wolf’s plates represent a moment of suspended action. Gone are the stilted tableaux of birds frozen in profile purely for the sake of identification; Wolf’s birds all bear the mark of the character of the species. ‘You know’, remarked Wolf, ‘I make a distinction between a picture in which there is an idea, and the mere representation of a bird’” (Isabella Tree, The Ruling Passion of John Gould).

Gould described The Birds of Great Britain as a return to his old love, and while the work does exhibit many similarities with the previously published Birds of Europe (see lot 23), the illustrations here incorporate more nests, eggs, and young than the earlier work. The work proved so popular that Gould was forced to increase the size of the edition after just two of its eventual twenty-five parts were issued.