Beschreibung:

Archibald Thorburn (1860-1935) Birds of Prey . London: W.F. Embleton, successor to A. Baird-Carter, 1919. 2° (357 X 254mm). Title, 2pp preface, limitation leaf, 12 leaves of explanatory text, each text leaf with two punched holes to upper left corner (?as called for), 12 coloured plates after Thorburn on thin card, with wide tinted borders, each signed in pencil beneath the image by Thorburn and with 'Fine Art Trade Guild' customs blindstamp. (Light browning to title.) Unbound as issued within original brown paper-covered portfolio, titled on upper cover, green cloth ties (small tear to surface of upper cover affecting one word of titling). FIRST EDITION. LIMITED EDITION OF 150, WITH EACH PLATE SIGNED BY THE ARTIST: THORBURN'S RAREST WORK. Thorburn 'is among the most famous of all British ornithological illustrators... a favourite artist of game-bird pictures... [and] one of the most sought-after and highly priced bird artists... Thorburn went outdoors to see his subjeects and paint them in their surroundings, creating some evocative and beautifully atmospheric landscapes... He was strongly influenced by Joseph Wolf who recognised Thorburn's talent and encouraged him. Wolf's pictures were often stories with sentimental overtones, but Thorburn's were realistic and more indicative of the struggle for survival... He wrote and illustrated four titles of his own, including British Birds 1915-16... and Game Birds and Wild-fowl of Great Britain and Ireland 1923... [The present work], is a rare collectors' item for very few of these plates , not used in his other publications, have survived... As a bird artist, Thorburn represents a link between the Victorian sporting artists and the wildlife artists of the 20th century. As a bird illustrator, with [George] Lodge, he is the last of the great era of British 19th century folio and lithographic artists.' (Christine Jackson Dictionary of Bird Artists of the World 1999, p.463). Not cited in Anker, Ayer, Nissen or Wood.