Antique Bird Print of Richardson's Skua, 1907

€ 90

Original antique · The actual sheet photographed · Certificate of authenticity on request · Sold unframed · Worldwide shipping from € 15 (rates)

Date: 1907
Sheet size: 22 × 15.4 cm (8.7 × 6.1 in)
Condition: Good
Reference: BG-12060-36

What the condition grades mean

Excellent: Bright and clean, with no faults worth mentioning.
Very good: Only light signs of age, such as faint toning.
Good: Normal signs of age for a sheet of this period: toning, some foxing, small marks or neat old repairs.
Fair: Clear faults such as staining, tears or repairs, priced to match.

Every fault we see is written in the condition note, and the whole sheet is shown uncropped in the photos.

About this sheet

Richardson's skua, an original color-printed bird plate from Birds of Britain by J. Lewis Bonhote, published in 1907. The plate is printed in soft, pale tones that resemble watercolor, and the image is without a printed caption.

Two birds are shown at the edge of the sea. A dark brown skua stands upright on a rock at the center of the plate, its hooked bill and long pointed central tail feathers clearly drawn against a hazy background of pale blue, which suggests distant ice or coast. At its left a second bird, barred and buff-yellow in color, sits on the water with its head turned back over its shoulder. The pair illustrate the dark and the barred plumages of this seabird, a breeder of Arctic coasts and tundra that is called the parasitic jaeger in North America.

John Lewis Bonhote was an English ornithologist who was educated at Harrow and at Trinity College, Cambridge. He served as private secretary to the Governor of the Bahamas in 1897 and was later secretary of the British Ornithologists' Union and of the British Ornithologists' Club. Birds of Britain, in which this plate appeared, belongs to the series of color-plate bird books of the Edwardian period.