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Details
George Montagu (1751-1815)
Ornithological Dictionary; or, Alphabetical Synopsis of British Birds. London: T. Bensley for J. White, 1802. 2 volumes, 8° (208 x 127mm). Hand-coloured etched plate after Eliza Dorville. EXTRA-ILLUSTRATED WITH 135 ORIGINAL WATER- AND BODY-COLOUR DRAWINGS, some heightened in white, 21 folding, 2 hand-coloured engraved plates by and after Ambros. Gabler inserted as frontispieces, one folding, 15 hand-coloured engraved plates of eggs by Weddell after G. Graves, dated 1815, and a 2-page 'Index' leaf from another work. (Variable, light, spotting and browning, title neatly reinforced at margin, lacking errata slips, some watercolours with slight cracking or flaking of bodycolour.) Contemporary maroon straight-grained morocco gilt, volume I lower free endpaper watermarked 1820, the flat spines gilt in compartments, lettered in two and dated at the foot, the boards with triple gilt fillet and blind roll-tooled borders, gilt turn-ins (extremities lightly rubbed, spines a little faded), gilt edges. Provenance: Paul Beilby Thompson (created first Baron Wenlock 1839, armorial bookplates)
BARON WENLOCK'S EXTRA-ILLUSTRATED COPY OF 'ONE OF THE MOST NOTABLE TREATISES ON BRITISH BIRDS, [...] a vade mecum which has held its place at a thousand elbows for three-quarters of a century' (Coues, quoted by Mullens and Swann, p.409). Montagu was 'one of the most eminent ornithologists of his day' (Mullens and Swann, p.409), and served as an infantry captain in the American War of Independence. Following a litigation case with one of his sons, his family estates were dispersed, and in 1797 he moved to Knowle Cottage near Kingbridge, where he spent the remainder of his life, studying natural history and forming large collections, of which the ornithological part is held by the Natural History Museum, London. The original water- and body-colour drawings contained in these volumes appear to be the work of an informed amateur ornithologist, and have been titled in pencil with the English names, prior to binding. They have been bound in adjacent to the appropriate entry (and have occasionally been cropped with minor loss, sometimes of titles), and the style of the binding and the watermarked date of the endpaper suggests that the binding was executed in the 1820s. Mullens and Swann p.410. (2)
Ornithological Dictionary; or, Alphabetical Synopsis of British Birds. London: T. Bensley for J. White, 1802. 2 volumes, 8° (208 x 127mm). Hand-coloured etched plate after Eliza Dorville. EXTRA-ILLUSTRATED WITH 135 ORIGINAL WATER- AND BODY-COLOUR DRAWINGS, some heightened in white, 21 folding, 2 hand-coloured engraved plates by and after Ambros. Gabler inserted as frontispieces, one folding, 15 hand-coloured engraved plates of eggs by Weddell after G. Graves, dated 1815, and a 2-page 'Index' leaf from another work. (Variable, light, spotting and browning, title neatly reinforced at margin, lacking errata slips, some watercolours with slight cracking or flaking of bodycolour.) Contemporary maroon straight-grained morocco gilt, volume I lower free endpaper watermarked 1820, the flat spines gilt in compartments, lettered in two and dated at the foot, the boards with triple gilt fillet and blind roll-tooled borders, gilt turn-ins (extremities lightly rubbed, spines a little faded), gilt edges. Provenance: Paul Beilby Thompson (created first Baron Wenlock 1839, armorial bookplates)
BARON WENLOCK'S EXTRA-ILLUSTRATED COPY OF 'ONE OF THE MOST NOTABLE TREATISES ON BRITISH BIRDS, [...] a vade mecum which has held its place at a thousand elbows for three-quarters of a century' (Coues, quoted by Mullens and Swann, p.409). Montagu was 'one of the most eminent ornithologists of his day' (Mullens and Swann, p.409), and served as an infantry captain in the American War of Independence. Following a litigation case with one of his sons, his family estates were dispersed, and in 1797 he moved to Knowle Cottage near Kingbridge, where he spent the remainder of his life, studying natural history and forming large collections, of which the ornithological part is held by the Natural History Museum, London. The original water- and body-colour drawings contained in these volumes appear to be the work of an informed amateur ornithologist, and have been titled in pencil with the English names, prior to binding. They have been bound in adjacent to the appropriate entry (and have occasionally been cropped with minor loss, sometimes of titles), and the style of the binding and the watermarked date of the endpaper suggests that the binding was executed in the 1820s. Mullens and Swann p.410. (2)
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The additional plates comprise: 135 original watercolours from William Lewin's Birds of Great Britain, 15 plates from George Graves' Ovarium Britannicum, and 2 part-plates from Johann Wolf and Bernard Meyer's Naturgeschichte der Vögel Deutschlands.