Beschreibung:

Illustrations of the Family of Psittacidae, or Parrots: the greater part of them species hitherto unfigured.
London: E. Lear, 61 Albany Street, Regent’s Park, [1830-]1832. Folio (555 x 365mm). Letterpress title (verso blank), 1p. dedication, 1p. list of subscribers, 1p. list of plates. 42 fine hand-colored lithographic plattes, drawn on stone by Lear from his own drawings and printed by Charles Hullmandel. Original purple moiré cloth, expertly rebacked with black morocco lettering piece lettered in gilt. Condition: title with vertical creasing as often, small closed tears to blank margins of the dedication, plate of ‘Baudin's Cockatoo’ with minor chips and short closed tears to lower margin, very faint marginal scattered spotting, ‘Maton's Parrakeet’ and ‘ Bauer's Parrakeet’ with some very light spotting within image; rebacked, covers faded, lightly soiled with minor fraying to board edges. rare. first edition of lear's first book: an ornithological highwater-mark which effortlessly displays the artist’s "masterly sense of design and intuitive sympathy for animal intelligence…" Only 175 copies of this spectacular work were ever printed, after which Lear destroyed the lithographic stones in a conscious effort to protect his 125 subscribers. An innovative book, this is the first English illustrated monograph on a single bird species, the first English ornithological work published in folio with lithographic plates, and the first major work inspired by the specimens in the newly-opened Regent’s Park Zoo. Lear’s monograph proved to be a benchmark for later folio works, particularly those of John Gould indeed Lear later described this work as the example 'which led to all Mr Gould's improvements'. Lear’s original intention had been to issue the work in fourteen parts, but the work was not a financial success and only twelve were ever published. Subsequently, Gould bought all the remaining stock: a measure of the regard in which he held Lear’s ornthological work. Lear started publication of this work when he was just eighteen, sketching the live parrots in the collection of the Regent's Park Zoological Gardens, (which had opened in 1828). Lear's incredible acuity was evident even at this early age: 'Lear worked in great detail, outlining every feather and filling in the details with fine lines. This scientific accuracy extended to every part of the bird, from the beak to the claws. He noted on the plate the scale of the bird as shown in relation to its life-size, whenever he had reduced it. The coloring was done with opaque watercolors with touches of egg-white for parts of the feathers requiring sheen, and for the eye, to add that 'life-touch' (C. Jackson. Bird Illustrators: Some Artists in Early Lithography , London: 1975). Such attention yielded 'the most exacting scientific naturalism with a masterly sense of design and intuitive sympathy for animal intelligence' (Hyman. Edward Lear's Birds, London: 1980). Anker 283; Fine Bird Books (1990) p.115; Nissen IVB 536; V. Noakes Edward Lear 1812-1888 (London: 1985), p.83, #9c; Ray The Illustrator and the Book 90; Wood 429; Zimmer pp.380-1.