Burmese Falcon, Poliohierax Insignis, male & female. Keulemans c1876.

by Keulemans, John Gerrard

Antique print of Poliohierax Insignis, male, female. Keulemans lithograph of Burmese Falcon c1877.

Original hand-coloured lithograph circa 1877 (in excellent condition) by the Dutch natural history artist Joseph Smit (1836-1929) for naturalist George Dawson Rowley’s Ornithological Miscellany published in London circa 1875-1878.

Smit was born in Lisse. He received his first commission from the greeat naturalist Hermann Schlegel at the Leiden Museum, to work on lithographs of birds of the Dutch East Indies. In 1866 he was invited to England by Philip Sclater to lithograph one hundred birds for Sclater's Exotic Ornithology. That was the beginning of a long and distinguished career as one of the finest lithographers during the greatest period of publication of grand hand-illustrated books. 

Size of plate, as published, is 33 x 25 cm (13 x 10 inches)