1160 - John Gould, hooded merganser, coloured lithograph from The Birds of Great Britain

John Gould, hooded merganser, coloured lithograph from The Birds of Great Britain Hand-coloured lithograph on paper, lettered in the stone below the image "MERGUS CUCULLATUS, Linn.", at the left "J. Gould & H.C. Richter del. et lith.", at the right "Walter, Imp.". In the foreground a hooded merganser drake swims to the left, the black head raised with its white fanned crest, the eye orange-yellow, the back black with white shoulder stripes, the flanks cinnamon brown; he makes his way between white flowering water plants with round green floating leaves. In the middle ground follow a brown-feathered female and a second drake, at the right reeds and sedges rise up. From John Gould's "The Birds of Great Britain". Age-appropriate good condition, paper slightly browned, partially stained. Image 35x49 cm (HxW), mount, behind glass, framed, overall size 58 x 71 cm (HxW) John Gould (1804 Lyme Regis – 1881 London) came to ornithology by way of taxidermy and, as the publisher of 41 folio volumes with some 3,000 plates, became the most important British publisher of bird books of the 19th c. "The Birds of Great Britain" appeared between 1862 and 1873 in 25 parts and comprises 367 hand-coloured lithographs in five volumes. Gould laid out the compositions as sketches, while the artistic execution on the stone lay with Henry Constantine Richter (1821-1902), who produced more than 1,600 plates for Gould and whose work for this publication is regarded as his finest; printing was by Walter and by Walter & Cohn respectively. The hooded merganser, today Lophodytes cucullatus, is native to North America.