About this sheet
This is an original antique photogravure, printed in black and gray without added color, showing a drake Scaup standing in shallow water and facing right, with two mussel shells lying in the foreground at lower left. The head, neck and breast are dark, the iris pale and the broad bill gray with a dark nail; the back is finely vermiculated in gray, the flank white and the tail end dark. The webbed feet are drawn in detail beneath the surface of the water.
No name of the bird is printed on the plate. The lettering below the image reads "1/2 scale" at the center and "PLATE CLXXXIII." at the right, the fraction giving the size of the drawing against the living bird, and the signature "L. M. Medland" is drawn at lower right of the image. The gray vermiculated back, which the Tufted Duck lacks, together with the rounded dark head and the broad bill, identifies the drake Scaup; the mussels refer to its food on the coast.
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.
With its upright standing pose and the still life of shells below, the plate holds well on its own or beside the swimming Tufted Duck from the same volume.
Condition: Light wear to the top left and bottom left corners. 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.
