print room: mystery closet

We have four prints in this area, an unidentified Owl for which we are seeking information about the artist, a Gould,  two Catesby images, and a Bien Edition reproduction.

Our latest mystery was brought to our attention by a visitor to our site.  She wrote to us about a 19th century owl print.

I recently purchased a nice hand colored lithograph ... a study of a large single owl with no background and I could tell that it was an older piece. ... I held it up to look for any markings to find a watermark that says WHATMAN 1831. Researching the papermaker keep taking me to Audubon websites. I looked for the image in The Gilcrease Museum Research Library and did not find that image. I am wondering if you know of another artist that might have used this paper? Or of someone to whom I could send an image for information?  

The top edge has remnants of the tape that was used to hinge it but the bottom edge has probably been cut so there are no names or titles or numbers. ... This has that "greasy pencil" look, not the look of an aquatint etching or engraving. No plate mark. It is trimmed close to the image at the bottom....The size of the paper is 16 7/8 x 13 [inches]. There is no printing on the item, but handwritten in pencil on the upper right front is 21 and on the back 603 in a circle, also in pencil....I am also a watercolorist and this is painted in the same technique that I use, dry brushed and layered to get the intense clear unmudded colors.  I know a curator in the Gilcrease and we looked at three prints that they have in the collection and I search through the books that they have. I did not find this exact image...I love a mystery but I would love to be able to attribute this to an artist.  

If anyone can provide the name of the artist or the work, please contact us.

J. Gould and H. C. Richter

The Gould is perhaps not that much of a mystery.  Entitled Cinclus Sordidus, this hand-colored lithograph portrays a species of dipper in a pretty landscape setting including a waterfall in the background.  The artists are given as J. Gould and H. C. Richter on the bottom left, the printer Hullmandel and Walton on the bottom right.  We would appreciate information from anyone knowing the modern name of this bird, or the work in which this plate originally appeared.  We have ruled out Birds of Europe (since Richter began working with Gould after this publication) and Birds of Britain.

Solved:  Visitor Bob Patterson, who has a Zoology website where "a great deal of info about living things may be found," has kindly provided the answer to this mystery.  He says that this bird is the Brown Dipper of southeast Asia and Japan.  The citation for the dipper would be shown as Brown Dipper, Cinclus pallasii  Temminck 1820.

Bob writes that he is working on a "Birds of the World" section for his website, including a number of pages about Linnaeus and how we got the names we use for birds.  Wherever possible in the listing for 10,000 species worldwide, he is trying to provide links to descriptions, artwork, bird songs, etc.  We have included a link to Bob's site here and have also added one to our favorite links list. 

The print is about 14 x 21 with minor handling creases, a few tiny spots of foxing, and tiny losses at the corners.  SOLD

Catesby Images

Our most mysterious prints were acquired from a man who inherited them from his father, an antiques dealer.  These images are from the Appendix of Catesby's Natural History of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands, first published in 1747.  The images are the Heath Hen (with Dodecatheon meadia, or Shooting Star, plate I of the appendix) and the American Partridge (or Bobwhite, with Atamasco lilies, plate XII of the appendix).  They are hand-colored and show plate marks.   Unlike the original Catesbys, these prints have no plate numbers or any other writing on them.  The back of the paper is badly stained while the front of the paper is toned.  The paper measures about 24 inches x 18 inches.  Both plate marks measure 10-3/8 inches x 14-1/8 inches.  We could see no watermark on the paper (which is wove).   Both prints are in need of deacidification.

The Bobwhite is similar in color to the Catesby plate we located in a print dealer's catalogue, but the Heath Hen differs in all aspects of its coloring from the illustration we located.  Unlike that illustration, the bird in our plate is marked with small dabs of white paint.  The ground and the shooting star blossom are also colored differently.  The Heath Hen, by the way, is an extinct New England species, also called the eastern prairie chicken, that some maintain must have been scarce even in Audubon's time since he never painted it. 

These prints are very attractive, particularly the bobwhite which has very nice coloring.  Anyone who can point us in the right direction for determining the age and/or source of these plates, please contact us.

UPDATE: We have seen photos on the web of two Catesby prints with very similar coloring to these.  Those Catesbys date to the late 18th/early 19th century (so-called "third edition" -- prints done from 1771 through the early 19th century).  The similarities between our print and these "third edition" prints were striking.  One difference, however, is that the "third edition" prints were reported to have J WHATMAN watermarks.  We cannot see a watermark on either of these prints.

	American Partridge (Bobwhite) with Atamasco Lily	Atamasco lilies are not true lilies but are actually part of the amaryllis family.  The blossom changes from white to pink as it ages.  Native to the Southeast, the plant blooms in March and April.
Heath Hen with Shooting Star.  Catesby gave the flower its latin name, Dodecatheon meadia, which he named for one of his patrons, Dr. Richard Mead.	To the best of our knowledge, the heath hen in the original Catesby etching was not speckled with white.	The shooting star depicted in the plate should be pink, not blue.

Bien Edition Reproduction -- mystery solved!

Some references incorrectly state that the Bien Edition plates were never reproduced.  The New York Graphics Society put out two offset reproductions of Bien Edition plates -- the Common Crossbill  and the Yellow-Breasted Chat.  I believe the two images to be similar, but have only seen the Common Crossbill (which I own).  My print measures 20 inches x 26-1/4 inches (the original, a full-sheet print, would have been twice the size).  Susanne Low provides measurements of the original image area of 23-1/2 x 19 inches; I measured the reproduction image to be 20 x 15 inches, or about 70 percent of the original area.  The print is clearly  marked, "Copyright New York Graphic Society, Fine Art Publishers" directly under the J. J. Audubon credit and "Printed in the USA" under the Bien credit.  There is also a small four-digit number (6367) located above the plate number. The reproduction is printed on thick, textured paper while the paper used in the Bien edition is thin and slightly slick in its finish. This print was part of a series of Audubon prints put out by the New York Graphic Society in the 1950s, most of the prints reproducing Havells.  These prints have no collectible value, but rather represent attractive and somewhat unusual reproductions of Audubon's work. Any value they have is based on their decorativeness (that is, how much someone would pay simply because they like the print and therefore want to own it).

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Last updated 02.28.09