About this sheet
This is an original antique photogravure, printed in black and gray without added color, showing a female Red-breasted Merganser swimming to the left with her head bent down toward a single downy duckling that swims close beside her breast. Her head is brown with a ragged crest at the back, the color shading softly into a paler throat and neck, and the long narrow bill points down to the water. The duckling is dark with pale patches on the down, and its small head is drawn facing left.
No name of the bird is printed on the plate. The lettering below the image reads "2/5 scale" at the center and "PLATE CXCIII." at the right, the fraction giving the size of the drawing against the living bird, and the signature "L. M. Medland" is drawn in the water at lower right. The ragged crest and the soft, unbroken shading from brown head to pale throat identify the female Red-breasted Merganser; in the Goosander the brown head ends sharply against the white neck.
Charles Stonham's The Birds of the British Islands was published in London by E. Grant Richards in five volumes between 1906 and 1911, and this plate belongs to the third volume, which carries the account through the cormorants, herons, geese, swans and ducks. All of the plates are after drawings by Lilian M. Medland, who later married the ornithologist Tom Iredale and moved to Australia. Her drawings were reproduced in photogravure, a photomechanical intaglio process that keeps the soft gradations of tone of the original drawing, and the printed surface sits within a plate mark.
The tender subject of mother and young makes this a good choice for a child's room or a quiet corner.
Condition: Light wear to the bottom right corner. Light age toning; light handling soiling along the edges and a few small spots in the margins. Printed image clean.
This is an original antique print, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed. Any framed or interior images are shown for presentation and inspiration only, unless the listing explicitly states that the item is sold framed.
