Brown, Peter

New Illustrations of Zoology, Containing Fifty Coloured plates of New, Curious, and Non-descript Birds, with a few Quadrupeds, Reptiles, and Insects. London: B[enjamin] White, 1776



4to (12 x 9½ in.; 305 x 241 mm). Titles and text in English and French, 50 handcolored engraved plates after the author (42 birds, 5 mammals, 2 insects and one amphibian); minor marginal toning, short tear to top margin of text to plate 14. Modern half straight-grained green morocco over marbled boards, spine in 6 compartments tooled and lettered gilt, plain endpapers and edges.

Harris Hollin (bookplate)

Ayer/Zimmer, 101; Copenhagen/Anker 72; Fine Bird Books 82; McGill/Wood 264; Nissen IVB 151

First edition, a fine copy. The work is based in the main on specimens in the natural history collections of Marmaduke Tunstall and Thomas Pennant, but also contains plates based on drawings by the Ceylon artist P. C. de Bevere. Much of the text was written by Pennant, who had previously employed Brown for two of the plates in his British Zoology. Brown was also an accomplished flower painter and exhibited at the Royal Academy between 1770 and 1791.