Velvet Scoter, Antique Bird Print after Lilian Medland, circa 1909

About this sheet

This antique bird print shows a large dark sea duck swimming low in the water, the body black but for a clean white bar showing on the folded wing and a small white mark below the eye, the heavy bill swollen at its base. It is plate CXC of Charles Stonham's The Birds of the British Islands, drawn by Lilian M. Medland and printed in monochrome, and it carries the plate number and the artist's signature in the lower margin together with the fraction giving the scale at which the bird is reproduced.

The plate comes from The Birds of the British Islands by Charles Stonham, issued in five volumes in London by E. Grant Richards between 1906 and 1911 with three hundred and eighteen plates. Every figure was drawn by Lilian Marguerite Medland, one of the small number of women who made a living as a bird artist in Britain at the turn of the century, and her monogram appears on the sheet. Medland worked from skins and from living birds, and the plates are notable for the quiet accuracy of their posture and for the soft modelling of plumage that a monochrome process could carry. She later emigrated to Australia, where she illustrated the standard works on that country's birds, and her British plates have been sought after ever since.

Stonham's plates are printed in monochrome rather than colour, and that is the point of them. Freed from the flat washes of a hand coloured bird book, Medland could model a bird in tone alone, and the result reads more like a drawing than a coloured plate. A single sheet hangs extremely well in a plain frame with a generous mount, and a run of three or four from the same volume makes one of the most satisfying groups in natural history printing, quiet enough for a hallway, a study or a dining room and entirely at home beside photographs.

Light handling wear to the top left and bottom right corners; minor nicks along the left edge. Light, uneven toning, slightly darker towards the edges. A few small foxing spots and one larger brown spot in the margin.

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.