Gould, John | The full set of the artist's masterpiece

Property from the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, sold to benefit the care of the Museum's 22 million specimens and objects

Gould, John

A Monograph of the Trochilidae, or Family of Humming-Birds. London: Taylor and Francis for the Author, [1849-] 1861 and [1880]-1887

6 volumes, large folio (563 x 371mm). List of subscribers, list of plates in each volume, 418 hand-colored lithographed plates, many highlighted with varnish and metallic paints, by Gould, H.C. Richter and William Hart; a generally very clean set, the gilt-heightened colors bright, with perhaps 25 plates only having some faint scattered spotting. Contemporary full green morocco, lavishly gilt; some rubbing and light shelf wear, slight loss at very bottom of spine of Vol. 1.

"The Trochilidae of Gould is his masterpiece, and must ever remain a feast of beauty and a source of wonder" (Fine Bird Books, p.29).

Gould injected remarkable vivacity into his hummingbirds by using gold leaf over painted with transparent oil colors and varnish, evoking the iridescent effect of their plumage. The birds are shown in a boundless variety of positions, hovering near, swooping into and rested upon crops of exquisitely illustrated flowers.

Gould's own remarkable collection of 1500 mounted hummingbirds was exhibited in the Zoological Gardens, Regent's Park, during the Great Exhibition of 1851. It attracted 75,000 visitors, including Queen Victoria, who recorded in her diary: "It is impossible to imagine anything so lovely as these little Humming Birds, their variety, and the extraordinary brilliance of their colours."

The work was issued in twenty-five parts, followed later (1880-1887) by a mostly posthumous five-part supplement by Richard Bowdler Sharpe, often not present, but included here.

REFERENCE:

Anker 177; Fine Bird Books, p. 78; Nissen IVB 380; Sauer 16; Zimmer, p. 258

PROVENANCE:

Cecil George Savile Foljambe (bookplate) — Library of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History (bookplate recording 22 November 1910 purchase)