Australian Banded Stilt, Cladorhynchus Leucocephalus. Keulemans hand-coloured lithograph c1910.

by Keulemans, John Gerrard

Cladorhynchus Leucocephalus (Banded Stilt), Keulemans antique print.

Original hand-coloured lithograph by John Gerrard Keulemans (1842-1912) published c1914 for The Birds of Australia by Gregory Macalister Mathews (1876-1949), published in London between 1910 and 1927. It was one of last-published works to be grandly illustrated with hand-coloured lithographs - a skilled, expensive, labour-intensive process.

Gregory Mathews was born in northern New South Wales and educated at Singleton Grammar and King's School, Parramatta. He was not a scientist but devoted himself to studying Australasian birds and was associated with scientific organizations around the world. After Mathews arrived in England in 1902, Richard Bowdler Sharpe of the British Museum (who had worked with 'The Bird Man' John Gould), encouraged Mathews to produce a less expensive work on Australian birds. Self-funded, Mathews researched and compiled 600 bird lithographs with descriptive texts. 

Made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1910, Mathews was made a Commander of the British Empire by the King in 1939, in recognition of his contributions to science. Mathews presented his enormous ornithological library to Australian in 1939, and it is now housed in the National Library in Canberra.

In fine condition, page size is 335 x 240mm (13.1/4 x 9.1/2 inches).