First edition hand-coloured lithograph by J. Wolf & J. Smit, heightened with gum arabic. Published in New York by M & N Hanhart c1873. “Astrapia Nigra” from Daniel Girard Elliot’s ”A Monograph of the Birds of Paradise”. Image size 580mm x 440mm. $7,500 fully framed to museum standards.
A magnificent image from Elliot’s Birds of Paradise, painted by Joseph Wolf, “without exception, the best all-round animal artist who ever lived’ (Sir Edwin Landseer).
Ornithological illustration reached its zenith during the golden age of lithography, and this image is from that great era. Even today, with all of the excellent methods of colour reproduction available, the beauty of hand-colouring cannot be equalled.
Joseph Wolf is pre-eminent among the ornithological artists of the day: he was the first bird artist to fully understand and use the new freedom of style that lithography allowed. The lithographic crayon suited Wolf’s drawing style, transforming his soft expressive lines and subtle suggestions of movement into a printable image. His work set a new standard in life-like representations and Wolf’s skill at capturing the essential character of his subjects also breathed life into the stiff “bird on a perch” portrayals so characteristic of bird art of the day.
The plates in Elliot’s Monograph of the… Birds of Paradise, “almost as magnificent as the birds they portray, were the fruits of Elliot’s considerable wealth, Wolf’s great artistry and both men’s profound knowledge and love of birds” (Dance). Elliot writes in the preface “The drawings of Mr. Wolf will, I am sure, receive the admiration of those who see them; for, like all that artist’s productions, they cannot be surpassed, if equalled, at the present time. Mr. J. Smit has lithographed the drawings with his usual conscientious fidelity, and in his share of the work has left me nothing to desire… In the coloring of the plates Mr. J.D. White has faithfully followed the originals; and in the difficult portions where it was necessary to produce the metallic hues, he has been very successful.”
Daniel Giraud Elliot combined his vast scientific knowledge, considerable personal wealth and the significant talents of the renowned bird artist, Joseph Wolf, to create one of the most stunning and rare ornithological works of the nineteenth century.
A Monograph of the Paradiseidae or Birds of Paradise is comprised of thirty-seven plates depicting the most colourful and exotic birds from New Guinea and Australia. The large elephant folio size is second only in scale to Audubon’s famous work. There were probably fewer than one hundred complete folios of this first edition.
Daniel Giraud Elliot (March 7, 1835 – December 22, 1915) was an American zoologist. Elliot was one of the founders of the American Museum of Natural History in New York and the American Ornithologists’ Union. He was also curator of zoology at the Field Museum in Chicago. Elliot used his wealth to publish a series of sumptuous color-plate books on birds and animals. Elliot wrote the text himself and commissioned artists such as Joseph Wolf and Joseph Smit, both of whom had worked for John Gould, to provide the illustrations. The books included A Monograph of the Phasianidae (Family of the Pheasants) (1870-72), A Monograph of the Paradiseidae or Birds of Paradise (1873), A Monograph of the Felidae or Family of Cats (1878) and Review of the Primates (1913). In 1899, Elliot was invited to join the elite Harriman Alaska Expedition to study and document wildlife along the Alaskan coast. The National Academy of Sciences awards the Daniel Giraud Elliot medal “for meritorious work in zoology or paleontology published in a three to five-year period. Established through the Daniel Giraud Elliot Fund by gift of Miss Margaret Henderson Elliot.”
