EDWARD LEAR'S PARROTS

细节

EDWARD LEAR'S PARROTS

Of the following five lots of watercolours by Edward Lear depicting parrots one, lot 129, was drawn for his own Illustrations of the Family of Psittacidae or Parrots, published 1830-32, and the others for a volume of Sir William Jardine's Naturalist's Journal published in 1836 and again in a collected edition in 1843. Lear began drawing birds and animals professionally in his teens and presented a group of such drawings to his patron Mrs Godfrey Wentworth on 24 April 1830. He may also have been working for the taxidermist/publisher John Gould as early as 1830 or even 1828.
Lear began work on his own publication, the first to be devoted to a single species in 1830. In June of that year he obtained permission to make drawings of parrots at the Zoological Society of London, founded the year before, and the first part of his publication containing three plates was dated November 1830. He secured a number of subscribers and intended to cover the whole field in fourteen parts, but 'owing to the tardy paying of many of my subscribers' only twelve parts, containing forty-two plates in all, appeared; by April 1832 the collected edition, dedicated to the Queen, was published. The folio format enabled him to depict most of the parrots full-size, though a few of the larger ones, including the Red and Blue Macaw had to be reduced to two-thirds life-size. The title page continued, ...Parrots, the greater part of them species hitherto unfigured.. Moreover, Lear was the first to depict his subjects from the life rather than from stuffed specimens. Lear's efforts were rewarded by his being elected an Associate Member of the Linnean Society in November 1830, but he failed to sell all his edition of 175 copies and the remainder was bought by John Gould.

Lear did the drawings for plates showing big cats published by Jardine in the Naturalist's Journal in 1834 but his main contribution was to the volume on Pigeons published in 1835 and Parrots in 1836; both had texts by Prideaux John Selby and for each Lear provided drawings for thirteen octavo-sized plates and a vignette title-page. As well as being considerably smaller than the plates in his own publication the plates showed the birds in landscape settings, probably the work of the engraver W.H. Lizars. The various editions of the Naturalist's Journal are a bibliographer's nightmare. When issued in parts it was divided into different series, Mammalia, Ornithology, etc., each with its own sequence; the volume on Parrots appeared as Ornithology, vol.VI in 1836. In the collected edition of 1843 the parts were reordered in a single sequence and Parrots appeared as vol.XVIII (in an undated later edition of, perhaps, the mid 1840s the volume, repaginated, appears as vol.X).
The Advertisement in vol.XVIII of the 1843 edition refers to 'the beautiful and interesting illustrations by Mr LEAR, from whose pencil they have...been taken - the drawings having all been made especially for the volume.' In a letter of 23 January 1834 Lear makes a point of not repeating the designs he had published in his own book: 'Concerning the request you make that I would allow these [earlier designs] being copied - I have no power either to refuse or comply - since I have sold all rights in the volume to Mr Gould...Supposing Mr Gould should object to my Psittacidae being copied - I believe I may add that from possessing a vast number of sketches from living Parrots I should be able to furnish you with drawings at a rather less charge than that I make for quadrupeds at present. It was my habit, at the time I was publishing - to sketch almost every parrot that came in my way - I thus obtained many figures of said species. Were there any considerable number required, I would make finished drawings for #1.0.0 each, both on account of the references I have by me, because parrots are my favourites...I might also suggest that by re-copying my Parrots - you diminished the chance of a hundred...of my subscribers purchasing your volume, as they would prefer original figures to duplicates...' (V.Noakes, ed., Edward Lear: Selected Letters, Oxford 1988; the fullest general coverage of Lear's bird drawings is V. Noakes, Edward Lear 1812-1888, exhibition catalogue, Royal Academy, 1985, pp. 79-91, 207-10)

THE PROPERTY OF A LADY

Edward Lear (1812-1888)
Red and Blue Macaw, an Illustration for Sir William Jardine's 'Naturalist's Library'
signed and inscribed 'E.Lear.del. Macrocercus aracanga Plate 7 '; pencil and watercolour heightened with gum arabic, unframed
7 1/8 x 4 3/8in. (181 x 111mm.)

来源

With Agnew's

刻印

W.H. Lizars, The Naturalist's Library, 1843 ed., XVIII, pl.7

拍品专文

A drawing for plate 7 of Jardine's Naturalist's Library, vol.XVIII in the 1843 collected edition, first published in vol.VI of Ornithology in 1836: 'Red and Blue Maccaw (sic.)/Macrocerus aracAnga'. In the published plate a landscape setting has beeN added, presumably by Lizars.
Selby's text points out that this species is a native of the 'intertropical parts of America', Guiana, Surinam and parts of Mexico, and warns that 'It is...only in such situations as the Zoological Gardens, that we can admire and contemplate its beauty with satisfaction and pleasure, its screams, and hoarse discordant tones, rendering it any thing but an agreeable companion when confined within the precincts of a private house'. He adds that 'Our figure is from a living bird in the gardens of the Zoological Society'.
Lear had already included this bird in his own Illustrations of the Family of Psittacidae or Parrots, 1832 ed., plate 7, as 'Red and Yellow Maccaw Macrocerus Aracanga', at two-thirds lifesize. In Lear's publication the body of the parrot is seen from above showing the upper sides of the wings, and the head is turned away and to the left.
Much later, on 13 May 1855, Lear drew 'Roarer/our darling Maccaw', a parrot of the same species, for Richard Ford (coll. Brinsley Ford)