Australian Red-necked Avocet, Recurvirostra Novae-Hollandiae. Keulemans lithograph c1910.

by Keulemans, John Gerrard

Antique print of Recurvirostra Novae-Hollandiae, Australian Avocet.

Original hand-coloured lithograph by John Gerrard Keulemans (1842-1912) 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 and 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.

Tiny spot above the bird. Price reduced. Page size is 335 x 240mm (13.1/4 x 9.1/2 inches).