Joseph Wolf | Zoological Sketches, [1856-] 1861-1867, 2 volumes of loose plates in red morocco-backed boxes

Joseph Wolf

Zoological Sketches by J.W. made for the Zoological Society of London, from animals in their vivarium, in the Regent's Park, edited with notes by Philip Lutley Sclater. London: Henry Graves and Company, 1861-1867

2 volumes, folio (584 x 435 mm.), lithographed frontispiece (volume 1), hand-coloured lithographed title-pages, letterpress title-pages, list of subscribers, lists of plates, 100 fine hand-coloured lithographed plates by Joseph Smit after Joseph Wolf, plates with gilt-lettered captions, loose in contemporary red morocco-backed box, spotting (mostly at prelims, some light spotting affecting plates), dampstain to plate XLV 'The Great Bustard' and to verso of corresponding explanatory text leaf, some leaves frayed at margins or with small marginal closed tears (not affecting illustrations or text), morocco-backed boxes bumped at extremities, box for volume I becoming fragile

An exceptional collection of 100 plates after Wolf’s drawings, commissioned by the Zoological Society in 1852 and depicting the various species from the society’s vivarium in Regent’s Park. Joseph Wolf was already established as the illustrator of choice for figures including John Gould and David Livingstone and Charles Darwin, and the brief given was to produce “an accurate artistic record of the living form and expression of the many rare species of animals which exist from time to time in the menagerie”. 

LITERATURE:

Anker 539; Fine Bird Books, p. 115; Nissen IVB 1012; Wood, p. 633