Gould, John | With work by Edward Lear

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 Ramphastidae, or Family of Toucans. London: Printed by Taylor and Francis, published by the author, [1852]-1854

Folio (547 x 357 mm). 51 hand-colored lithographed plates by Gould and H.C. Richter finished with gum Arabic, one uncolored anatomical plate by G. Scharf; a lovely copy. Publisher's dark green morocco gilt; minor wear and rubbing. 

The second edition of this monograph, but in essence a completely new work, just as Gould considered it. Containing new depictions of the species figured in the first edition, with the addition of illustrations and descriptions of eighteen new species, such as those discovered in the Andes and West Indies.

The great watercolorist Edward Lear was also an artist in the earlier edition of this work, his talents for depicting striking plumage on magnificent display. In the present edition any of his surviving work was uncredited, his name wiped from the plates.

"This revised edition contained new drawings of the old species, and figures and descriptions of no less than eighteen others—all, in fact, that are known up to the present time. Great attention has been paid to the colouring of the soft parts—the orbits, eyes, bill, legs, &c,—the hues of which are so evanescent, that unless they be either drawn or noted down from the living bird or immediately after death, it is impossible to present faithful portraitures ..." (from Gould's Preface).

REFERENCE:

Anker 170; Fine Bird Books, p.77; Nissen IVB 378; Sauer 19; Wood, p.365; Zimmer, p.259

PROVENANCE:

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