Fruit Pigeon Ptilopus Jobiensis (Schlegel). Lithograph by Joseph Smit c1877.

by Smit, Joseph

Lovely antique print of Fruit Pigeons found in the north of Papua New Guinea on the Island of Jobi, Geelvink Bay.

Original hand-coloured lithograph by Joseph Smit for ornithologist George Dawson Rowley’s “Ornithological Miscellany” published in London between 1875 and 1878. Dutch zoological illustrator, Joseph Smit (1836-1929) received his first commission to lithograph birds of the Dutch East Indies for Hermann Schlegel at the Leiden Museum. He showed great skill - particularly in representing the downy plumage of birds, - and was invited to London by Philip Sclater to do lithographs of new and rare species of American birds for Sclater's "Exotic Ornithology" in 1866. He remained in London and was much in demand during the most important period of grand illustrated natural history publications.

Page size 315 x 250mm (approximately 12.5 x 10 inches).