The Library of Henry Rogers Broughton, 2nd Baron Fairhaven Part I

The Library of Henry Rogers Broughton, 2nd Baron Fairhaven Part I

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 206. Richard Bowdler Sharpe | Monograph of the Paradiseidae..., 1891-1898, 2 volumes, contemporary green half morocco.

Richard Bowdler Sharpe | Monograph of the Paradiseidae..., 1891-1898, 2 volumes, contemporary green half morocco

Auction Closed

May 18, 05:10 PM GMT

Estimate

15,000 - 25,000 GBP

Lot Details

Description

Richard Bowdler Sharpe


Monograph of the Paradiseidae, or Birds of Paradise, and Ptilonorhynchidae, or Bower-Birds. London: Henry Sotheran & Co. [printed by Taylor and Francis], 1891-1898


2 volumes, folios (554 x 379 mm.), title-page to each volume, 79 hand-coloured lithographed plates, many heightened with gum arabic, mostly by and after W. Hart or by Hart after J. Gould, a smaller number by Hart after J.G. Keulemans or by and after Keulemans, in-text woodcuts and half-tone illustrations, library stamps on versos of plates and title-pages of both volumes, contemporary green half morocco bound by Henry Sotheran & Co., spine with raised bands in seven compartments, top edges gilt, marbled endpapers, upper margin of Plate III slightly dust-soiled (not affecting illustration), minor paper adhesion to Plate IV, extremities slightly rubbed


"Gould, in his Birds of New Guinea, figured nearly every species known in his day, and he had intended to publish a complete Monograph of the Family, for which purpose he kept the lithographic stones from which the plates had been prepared. Thus it came to pass that when Messrs. Sotheran purchased the stock of Gould's works after his death, they acquired the stones with which he had intended to illustrate his Monograph of the Paradiseidae. Many of them were broken or otherwise damaged, and of these some have been redrawn or replaced by new plates by Mr. Hart. Since Gould's time, however, many marvellous new species have been discovered, and these have been described and figured in the present work" (Appendix).


LITERATURE:

Fine Bird Books, p. 107; Nissen IVB 865; Wood 565; Zimmer 581


PROVENANCE:

Library stamps of London Institution Reference Library, Finsbury Circus