Footnotes

John Gould 1804-1881

John Gould was born on September 14, 1804, at Lyme Regis on the Dorset coast, England. He was the enterprising genius behind the creation of 2,999 different hand coloured lithographic plates of birds and animals. A self-made man whom left a legacy to the world of natural history that has seldom been rivalled.

At the age of 21, he set up his own taxidermy business in London, having gained his ornithological knowledge by observation and experience. He acquired a collection of bird skins in 1827 from the hill country of the Himalayas, many of them new to Europe. After he stuffed and mounted them he realised their artistic possibilities and his new life as a bird illustrator began. Gould’s wife, Elizabeth helped to draw and lithograph many of his first plates.

In 1828 Gould accepted the position of Curator and Preserver to the Museum of the Zoological Society of London. He continued his private taxidermy business, acted as advisor to national institutions and travelled widely in England and on the Continent, buying and selling specimens. In his pursuit of new and different birds, John Gould travelled to Asia, Australia and the East Indies.

Many consider his series of natural history plates as the finest works of bird illustrations ever presented. His Hummingbirds, along with his Toucans and his Birds of Paradise, are generally most in demand by collectors.

Between 1831 and 1888, Gould published more than forty large folio volumes. The five-volume Birds of Europe (1832-37) and Monograph of the Ramphastidae (Toucans) (1834) were so successful that the Goulds were able to spend two years (1838-40) in Australia, where they made a large collection of birds and mammals. The collection resulted in Gould's most famous work, The Birds of Australia, 7 vol. (1840-48; supplements 1851-69), and in Mammals of Australia, 3 vol. (1845-63). He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1843.

Along with Elizabeth Gould, other artists including Edward Lear, Joseph Wolf, William Hart, Richard Bowdler Sharp and H.C. Richter did most of the hand colouring and lithography. The making of these prints were technically and artistically demanding. Gould’s original sketches were transferred to stone with special pencils or chalk. They were printed by hand from the stones and each print was hand-coloured. As the prints were very expensive for their time, only a few hundred of the wealthiest people and institutions could afford them, accounting for their rarity today.

In 1851 John Gould exhibited stuffed hummingbirds in the Zoological Gardens of Regents Park. At the Zoological Gardens he took full advantage of the huge crowds flocking to London to visit the Great Exhibition, charged his visitors six pence at a time and managed to make a good profit which was said to be eight hundred pounds. The exhibition consisted of twenty-four elaborate display cases each approximately 2 feet 2 inches high and 1 foot 10 inches wide, arranged in rows and surmounted by canopies suspended from the ceiling to diffuse the light. Each case was designed to be viewed in the round and they differed according to whether they had four, six, or eight panels of glass in their structure, and each rested on a wooden base, painted black and gold, which were all raised on a pedestal support. Each case contained between five and fifteen Hummingbirds, all strategically positioned to exhibit their chief characteristics and to emphasise the metallic iridescence of the male plume. Gould introduced the unusual innovation for the period of foliage and nests into the cases to give an impression of natural habitat, an unusual innovation for that period.

This case of humming birds could well be one of those exhibited at the Zoological Gardens in 1851 as the description of the size and design given above and the print from the Illustrated London News strongly support the theory. Four further cases of humming birds identical design were until recently on display in the Rare Book Room at the Natural History Museum, Kensington. No other examples are known.