John Gould

John Gould was an ornithologist born in 1804 in England. Known as the 'Bird Man', he was the enterprising genius behind the creation of 2999 different hand colored lithographic plates of birds and animals published as The Bird Man. The celebrated and unrivalled naturalist was the son of a gardener and thus had no formal university training. Gould considered himself a self-made man as he gained his ornithological knowledge by observation and experience. His immense contributions to this field of science were so vast and so valuable that in 1843 he was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society. His role in identification of birds was central to the development of Charles Darwin’s Theory of Natural selection in his book ‘On the Origins of Species’.

Gould was a skilled taxidermist and was appointed as animal preserver at the museum of the Zoological Society of London in 1928. He realized the artistic potential as an illustrator when a collection of bird skins from the Himalayas, many of which were new to Europe, was acquired. The richness of these specimen are compiled in ‘A century of Birds from the Himalayan Mountains’ and published in 1831. Over the next 5 decades, Gould published more than forty large folio volumes which was continued 7 years after his death till 1888. Gould himself did not execute finished sketches for all the plates but provided rough outlines and notes for his artist to work from. They did most of the hand colouring and lithography. The artist’s Elizabeth Gould, Edward Lear, Joseph Wolf, William Hart, and H.C. Richter who were some of the most accomplished of their generation.

In his pursuit of new and different birds, John Gould travelled to Asia, Australia and the East Indies and was named as the father of birds. His series of natural history plates are considered as the finest works of bird illustrations ever presented. The striking nature of Gould’s work is the result of several factors. He arranged the birds and mammals in tasteful compositions that flaunted their characteristics plumage while also creating a sense of movement. With his family background, he had a great understanding of the natural surroundings of animals and choose attractive and appropriate plants to accentuate the background.

The exquisite quality of these prints was 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. Each print was hand-colored, and issued in small sets to subscribers only. 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.