Lot 1182

Description

Bird prints in colour, drawn from nature by A.Wilson and coloured, prints (approx 24.5x32cm), all but two matted (approx 40.5x49cm). Some with foxing, overall very fine. (78)

Alexander Wilson (1766-1813) is known as 'the father of American ornithology', a title bestowed on him both because of his American Ornithology, the first natural history just on American birds, which was first issued from 1808 to 1814 and so predated Audubon by about two decades, and also because he was the first American citizen to become a full-time scientist in this field. Wilson drew most of the birds for his ornithology himself with the engraving done mainly by Alexander Lawson and John G. Warnicke. Because he worked on a small budget he had to crowd as many specimens as he could onto one plate for the series and thus a characteristic appearance of many of his prints is that of several birds, juxtaposed in different combinations, filling the page right up to the plate mark.