Details
GREEN, Emma. [Album of Anglo-Indian bird and flower drawings]. Trichinopoly, 1853.
4° (285 x 230mm.). Title-page and collection of 72 original drawings in watercolour, bodycoloyur and gum arabic comprising 36 drawings of birds with grey wash backgrounds and 36 flower drawings, all on paper, some with names added in pencil in lower margin, mounted on white or buff paper, bound in ornate Victorian binding of green morocco, finely tooled in gilt, upper cover with central broken rectangle surrounded with pattern of connecting circles outlined and edged in brilliant blue paint, flat spine with similar design and lyre tool at centre. g.e. (joints and edges a little rubbed).
Within an embossed gilt cartouche on the title-page the regimental badge of the 84th (York and Lancaster) Regiment of Foot is affixed above the words lettered in watercolour, Emma Green 1853 Trichinopoly. The 84th regiment arrived in Trichinopoly, a city and district of British India in the Madras presidency, in January 1850 and, after a stay of four years, returned to Burma in January 1854. Emma Green was most likely a relative of Major George Green who was serving with the regiment at that time.
The bird drawings are executed in minute detail in brilliant colours, highlighted with gum arabic, starkly contrasting with the grey wash backgrounds and disproportionate trees on which they are mostly shown perching. The style suggests an Indian, rather than European, artist. The birds include species of king fisher, fish eater, fly catcher, bird of paradise, duck, woodpecker, parrot, parakeet, flamingo, night jar, cuckoo, stork, goldfinch, etc. The tropical flowers, fully coloured, appear to be by another or other, artists, also finely painted in an oriental style including varieties of hibiscus, dahlia, oleander, laburnum, pomegranate flower, cardomom, jasmin and many others.
4° (285 x 230mm.). Title-page and collection of 72 original drawings in watercolour, bodycoloyur and gum arabic comprising 36 drawings of birds with grey wash backgrounds and 36 flower drawings, all on paper, some with names added in pencil in lower margin, mounted on white or buff paper, bound in ornate Victorian binding of green morocco, finely tooled in gilt, upper cover with central broken rectangle surrounded with pattern of connecting circles outlined and edged in brilliant blue paint, flat spine with similar design and lyre tool at centre. g.e. (joints and edges a little rubbed).
Within an embossed gilt cartouche on the title-page the regimental badge of the 84th (York and Lancaster) Regiment of Foot is affixed above the words lettered in watercolour, Emma Green 1853 Trichinopoly. The 84th regiment arrived in Trichinopoly, a city and district of British India in the Madras presidency, in January 1850 and, after a stay of four years, returned to Burma in January 1854. Emma Green was most likely a relative of Major George Green who was serving with the regiment at that time.
The bird drawings are executed in minute detail in brilliant colours, highlighted with gum arabic, starkly contrasting with the grey wash backgrounds and disproportionate trees on which they are mostly shown perching. The style suggests an Indian, rather than European, artist. The birds include species of king fisher, fish eater, fly catcher, bird of paradise, duck, woodpecker, parrot, parakeet, flamingo, night jar, cuckoo, stork, goldfinch, etc. The tropical flowers, fully coloured, appear to be by another or other, artists, also finely painted in an oriental style including varieties of hibiscus, dahlia, oleander, laburnum, pomegranate flower, cardomom, jasmin and many others.