Gould, John.

Estimate

9,000 - 12,000 GBP

bidding is closed

Description

A Century of Birds from the Himalaya Mountains. London, [no publisher], 1831
paper

First edition, first issue (with backgrounds uncoloured), folio (538 x 365mm.), dedication leaf, list of subscribers, list of plates, 80 hand-coloured lithographed plates by and after Elizabeth Gould, printed by C. Hullmandel, nineteenth-century green half morocco gilt, gilt edges, list of plates with marginal tear at foot, plate 44 with very minor abrasion, binding rubbed and with surface abrasion at foot of upper cover

Provenance

Sir Thomas Hesketh, 3rd Bt. (1777-1842), Rufford Hall, Lancashire, bookplate, thence by descent; Easton Neston Library, book label

Literature

Anker 168; Nissen IVB 374; Sauer 1; Wood, p.364; Zimmer, p.251

Catalogue Note

John Gould (1805-1881) was born in Lyme Regis, Dorset, the son of John Gould, a gardener, and his wife Elizabeth Clatworthy. Gould's training was as a taxidermist rather than an artist, and in 1828 he was appointed animal preserver at the museum of the Zoological Society of London. About this time there arrived at the museum a collection of birds formed principally in the north-western Himalayas, the first of any size to reach Europe. The richness of this group of specimens spurred Gould to compile his first folio volume, A Century of Birds from the Himalaya Mountains (see following lot). This book heralded a body of work unrivalled in Victorian natural history, comprising forty-one volumes and over 3000 plates, produced over six decades. As Gould grew more successful, the lithographed plates became more ambitious; his later book The Birds of Great Britain (lot 45) shows many of its subjects against charming and picturesque backgrounds absent from his earlier work.

Gould himself did not execute finished drawings for any of his works, but he did provide rough pencil or watercolour sketches with notes for his artists to work from, and was the moving spirit behind the grand conception of the plates. The artists he employed - including his wife Elizabeth, Edward Lear, Joseph Wolf, Henry Richter and Joseph Hart - were among the most accomplished of their generation.

Although today we remember Gould primarily for the outstanding beauty of his folios, during his long career, he was at the forefront of ornithological and evolutionary science - his role in identifying different species of tanager brought back by Darwin from the voyage of the Beagle was central to the development of the theory of natural selection.

The text for this, Gould's first folio work, was largely written by N.A. Vigors, secretary to the Zoological Society. Many notable natural historians of the time can be found in the list of subscribers including John James Audubon and Edward Lear.