Lang, Ernst Friedrich Carl--Watercolours.

4to (the Lang paintings c.288 x 208mm.), 11 gouache on vellum ornithological paintings by Lang, one signed lower right, together with loosely inserted watercolours by other anonymous hands comprising 2 Chinese school ornithological watercolours (damaged), 6 small ornithological studies, 14 small botanical studies, 17 miscellaneous prints, eighteenth-century red morocco gilt, covers with wide foliate borders gilt, binding rubbed, joints and spine ends worn

Jonathan William Adam, engraved armorial bookplate; Anna Corsbie, ownership inscription dated 1838

See Heidrun Ludwig Nürnberger naturgeschichtliche Malerei im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert. - Marburg an der Lahn, 1998. pp.212-3, 281-2, col. pls. XXVIII-XXIX

Condition is described in the main body of the cataloguing, where appropriate
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Ernst Friedrich Carl Lang was the son of Kilian Lang, miniature painter and harpist. He moved to Nuremburg in 1755, studied as a pupil of the miniaturist Barbara Regina Dietzsch (1706-1783), and achieved renown for his exquisite paintings of natural history subjects, principally birds and flowers. Examples of his work are held by three European museums: The Staatsbibliothek Bamberg (3), The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (6) and the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremburg (6). Examples of his work are rare at auction: we have traced only one other painting sold, a gouache in similar style of a waxwing, sold in 2003 for £1680.