Details
A Certified facsimile or actual-size print. We offer a true quality nobody has; and for a price nobody is offering you for a comparable quality. This print was photographed using the latest technology, with a color-checker colour matched to the original illustration and then reproduced at the original plate size. A Museum Quality Limited Edition print, actual-size, signed, numbered and blind stamped. Indistinguishable form the original when glazed and framed.
Title: Magnificent Bird of Paradise
Subtitle: Diphyllodes Speciosa
Publication : A Monograph of the Paradiseidae, or Birds of Paradise
Author: Daniel Giraud Elliot (1835-1915)
Artist: Joseph Wolf (January 21, 1820 – April 20, 1899)
Paper Size: 59.5 x 48.5 cm
Description: 36 hand-coloured lithographic plates by Smit after Joseph Wolf, coloured by J.D. White.
Elliot's great work on the Birds of Paradise, one of the most admired bird prints ever produced. 'The plates , almost as magnificent as the birds they portray, were the fruits of Elliot's considerable wealth, Wolf's great artistry and both men's profound knowledge and love of birds' (Dance). Elliot writes of the illustrations: 'The drawings of Mr. Wolf will, I am sure, receive the admiration of those who see them; for, like all that artist's productions, they cannot be surpassed, if equalled, at the present time. Mr. J. Smit has lithographed the drawings with his usual conscientious fidelity, and in his share of the work has left me nothing to desire ... . In the colouring of the plates Mr. J.D. White has faithfully followed the originals; and in the difficult portions where it was necessary to produce the metallic hues, he has been very successful'. Elliot regards 'brightly coloured waving plumes' as a typical characteristic rather than an indispensable feature of this beautiful species which are presented in three sub-families, Paradiseae, containing the typical Birds of Paradise and their allies, Epimachinae, those species 'characterised by long, slender, somewhat curved bills', and Tectonarchinae, 'species that are in the habit of erecting bowers'. The complete work is dedicated to Alfred Russel Wallace, to whom Elliot expresses his indebtedness 'for nearly all our information regarding the habits of many species'.
