Lot Essay
JOSEPH WOLF (1820-1899)
Wolf was brought up in a village in the Rhineland Valley, and from an early age enjoyed drawing birds and mammals. He was apprenticed to a lithographic draughtsman but found it tedious and left Germany for Antwerp, where in 1844 he supplied life-size illustrations for a superb book on falconry by Schlegel and Wolverhorst. Due to political unrest, Wolf left Antwerp for England in 1848. He worked briefly at the British Museum on Gray's Genera of Birds but found it uninspiring. John Gould admired his work and commissioned an oil painting of Woodcocks seeking shelter which was exhibited at the Royal Academy. In 1856 Wolf and Gould journeyed together to the Dovrefjeld district of Norway to study the birds. Gould was a great admirer of Wolf's work and was more than keen to include his work in his magnificent monograph of 1862-1873 on The Birds of Great Britain. Wolf finally executed nearly 60 of the 367 plates for this publication.
Landseer was a great admirer of Wolf and commented of him 'When a good many artists of the present generation are forgotten, Wolf will be remembered.' Wolf was in contact with the Pre-Raphaelites and contributed to their exhibition in Fitzroy Square in 1857. In addition to his work for Gould, Wolf contributed to the Zoological Society's publications for 30 years from his arrival in England. One of the best known publications he illustrated is Daniel Giraud Elliot's The Life and Habits of Wild Animals, Macmillan, London, 1874.
This and the following six watercolours by Wolf, are from the collection of Frederick du Cane Godman (1834-1919). Godman, an ornithologist and patron in the field of natural history, also purchased the majority of the original watercolours for John Gould's The Birds of Great Britain which were sold in these Rooms on 4 October 1994. Today Godman is best remembered for the work he part wrote with Osbert Salvin, The Biologia of Central America 1879-1915, which in turn was inspired by Darwin's On the Origin of Species
Wolf was brought up in a village in the Rhineland Valley, and from an early age enjoyed drawing birds and mammals. He was apprenticed to a lithographic draughtsman but found it tedious and left Germany for Antwerp, where in 1844 he supplied life-size illustrations for a superb book on falconry by Schlegel and Wolverhorst. Due to political unrest, Wolf left Antwerp for England in 1848. He worked briefly at the British Museum on Gray's Genera of Birds but found it uninspiring. John Gould admired his work and commissioned an oil painting of Woodcocks seeking shelter which was exhibited at the Royal Academy. In 1856 Wolf and Gould journeyed together to the Dovrefjeld district of Norway to study the birds. Gould was a great admirer of Wolf's work and was more than keen to include his work in his magnificent monograph of 1862-1873 on The Birds of Great Britain. Wolf finally executed nearly 60 of the 367 plates for this publication.
Landseer was a great admirer of Wolf and commented of him 'When a good many artists of the present generation are forgotten, Wolf will be remembered.' Wolf was in contact with the Pre-Raphaelites and contributed to their exhibition in Fitzroy Square in 1857. In addition to his work for Gould, Wolf contributed to the Zoological Society's publications for 30 years from his arrival in England. One of the best known publications he illustrated is Daniel Giraud Elliot's The Life and Habits of Wild Animals, Macmillan, London, 1874.
This and the following six watercolours by Wolf, are from the collection of Frederick du Cane Godman (1834-1919). Godman, an ornithologist and patron in the field of natural history, also purchased the majority of the original watercolours for John Gould's The Birds of Great Britain which were sold in these Rooms on 4 October 1994. Today Godman is best remembered for the work he part wrote with Osbert Salvin, The Biologia of Central America 1879-1915, which in turn was inspired by Darwin's On the Origin of Species