About antique prints of Birds

Antique bird prints are a sure-fire winner in the gift stakes. Over the years some of the world’s leading artists and engravers have taken birds as their subjects.

Oliver Goldsmith (1730-1774), Anglo-Irish novelist, playwright and poet best known for his novel The Vicar of Wakefield, sought to draw together all that was known about the earth, its plants and animals in “A History of the Earth and Animated Nature”. The book was first published in 1774 and went through twenty editions. It included many beautiful bird engravings, including the examples above of  Woodpeckers,and American Crossbill. 

Sir William Jardine (1800-1874), a Scottish naturalist, is well know for editing and issuing the forty-volume The Naturalist’s Library. The series was divided into 4 sections; Ornithology, Mammalia, Entomology, Ichtyology; each section prepared by a leading naturalist. The series was hugely popular among all levels of Victorian Society and the Ornithology volumes included beautiful illustrations of which the Tragopan Hastingii, Meleagris Gallopavo Wild Turkey, Orange breasted Bull shrike, and Cerulean or Long-tailed Flycatcher, are some fine examples.

In 1906, Lilian Medland (1880-1955) was commissioned to paint the 318 illustrations required by ornothologist and highly regarded surgeon Charles Stonham in his five-volumes The Birds of the British Islands. This was to be Lilian Medland’s first professionally commissioned work. Prior to this she had demonstrated her talent for painting miniatures but had not previously worked as a professional artist. She sketched her subjects over the course of many visits to the London Zoological Gardens. The Arctic Skua and the Turtle Dove are beautiful examples of her work.