The Strange Pigeon, Ptilopus Insolitus from PNG. Keulemans lithograph c1877.

by Keulemans, John Gerrard

Antique print of Fruit Pigeons by Keulemans c1877. This bird was found in Papua New Guinea in Duke of York Island, New Ireland and New Britain. It was noted that this bird is the same as Ptilopus Jobiensis in all aspects - except the beak protruberance. 

Original hand-coloured lithograph by one of the finest of all bird artists, John Gerrard Keulemans (1842-1912), for ornithologist George Dawson Rowley’s “Ornithological Miscellany” published in London between 1875 and 1878. Keulemans' beautiful compositions and exquisitely finished hand-coloured lithographs were anatomically accurate, with birds in characteristic positions and environment.

After encouragement from curator of bird collections at the Zoological Society, John Gould's colleague Richard Bowdler Sharpe, Keulemans relocated from the Netherlands to London at the age of 26. His meticulous graphic studies contributed greatly to the finest natural history illustrated books between 1867 and 1911.

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