Tufted Duck, Antique Bird Print after Lilian Medland, circa 1909

This antique bird print shows a tufted drake swimming, the long drooping crest falling from the back of the head, the black of the head, breast and back set against the clean white of the flank in the sharpest contrast of any British duck. It is plate CLXXXII of Charles Stonham's The Birds of the British Islands, drawn by Lilian M. Medland and printed in monochrome, and it carries the plate number and the artist's signature in the lower margin together with the fraction giving the scale at which the bird is reproduced.

The plate comes from The Birds of the British Islands by Charles Stonham, issued in five volumes in London by E. Grant Richards between 1906 and 1911 with three hundred and eighteen plates. Every figure was drawn by Lilian Marguerite Medland, one of the small number of women who made a living as a bird artist in Britain at the turn of the century, and her monogram appears on the sheet. Medland worked from skins and from living birds, and the plates are notable for the quiet accuracy of their posture and for the soft modelling of plumage that a monochrome process could carry. She later emigrated to Australia, where she illustrated the standard works on that country's birds, and her British plates have been sought after ever since.

Stonham's plates are printed in monochrome rather than colour, and that is the point of them. Freed from the flat washes of a hand coloured bird book, Medland could model a bird in tone alone, and the result reads more like a drawing than a coloured plate. A single sheet hangs extremely well in a plain frame with a generous mount, and a run of three or four from the same volume makes one of the most satisfying groups in natural history printing, quiet enough for a hallway, a study or a dining room and entirely at home beside photographs.

Light wear to the top left corner. Light age toning; light handling soiling along the edges and a few small spots in the margins. Printed image clean.

This is an original antique print, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed. Any framed or interior images are shown for presentation and inspiration only, unless the listing explicitly states that the item is sold framed.