Period:Unknown Production date:1793-1796
Materials:paper
Technique:drawn
Subjects:chinese bird
Dimensions:Height: 443 millimetres (album cover) Height: 229 millimetres (sheet) Width: 180 millimetres Width: 334 millimetres
Description:
Profile of a bird; facing left, with grey-coloured feathers and a long beak, distant landscape background; from an album of 82 drawings of China Watercolour, ink and graphite
IMG
![图片[1]-drawing; album; print study BM-1865-0520.266-China Archive](https://chinaarchive.net/Unknown/43/mid_01443483_001.jpg)
Comments:There is a list of descriptions of the subjects inserted in the front of the album. This drawing is described as: “74. The Lou-za or fishing Bird of China. Vide Sir G: Stauntons Acc.t Page 388 Vol: 2.d” In volume 2 of Staunton’s “Account”, the following description is given of the bird depicted by Alexander: “It is a species of the pelican, resembling the common corvorant, but which, on a specimen being submitted to Doctor Shaw, he has distinguished in the following terms: “brown pelican or corvorant, with white throat, the body whiteish beneath and spotted with brown; the tail rounded; the irides blue; the bill yellow.”” Plate 37 of the accompanying folio volume of illustrations to Staunton is entitled “The Pelican Sinesis, or Fishing Corvorant of China” and gives the author of the drawing from which it was engraved (by W. Skelton) as S. Edwards. Compositionally, this print is identical to Alexander’s, but the depiction of the bird in the print accords more fully with Shaw’s description (given above) – the bird’s tail is much more rounded and a distinction in texture and patterning between the feathers on its back and those underneath its body is discernable. The print did, in fact, derive from Alexander’s watercolour drawing but Sydenham Edwards (c. 1768-1819), as a botanical and zoological draughtsman, was employed to lend Alexander’s image more accuracy. There is another, less-finished, version of this drawing in a volume in the India Office Library collection, BL (Legouix, 1980, p. 70).”Doctor Shaw” is identified elsewhere in Staunton’s “Account” as being “of the British Museum”; this was George Shaw (1751-1813), the natural historian and co-founder of the Linnean Society who became assistant keeper of the natural history section of the British Museum from 1791 and keeper from 1807 till his death.For further information about the album, see comment for 1865,0520.193.
Materials:paper
Technique:drawn
Subjects:chinese bird
Dimensions:Height: 443 millimetres (album cover) Height: 229 millimetres (sheet) Width: 180 millimetres Width: 334 millimetres
Description:
Profile of a bird; facing left, with grey-coloured feathers and a long beak, distant landscape background; from an album of 82 drawings of China Watercolour, ink and graphite
IMG
Comments:There is a list of descriptions of the subjects inserted in the front of the album. This drawing is described as: “74. The Lou-za or fishing Bird of China. Vide Sir G: Stauntons Acc.t Page 388 Vol: 2.d” In volume 2 of Staunton’s “Account”, the following description is given of the bird depicted by Alexander: “It is a species of the pelican, resembling the common corvorant, but which, on a specimen being submitted to Doctor Shaw, he has distinguished in the following terms: “brown pelican or corvorant, with white throat, the body whiteish beneath and spotted with brown; the tail rounded; the irides blue; the bill yellow.”” Plate 37 of the accompanying folio volume of illustrations to Staunton is entitled “The Pelican Sinesis, or Fishing Corvorant of China” and gives the author of the drawing from which it was engraved (by W. Skelton) as S. Edwards. Compositionally, this print is identical to Alexander’s, but the depiction of the bird in the print accords more fully with Shaw’s description (given above) – the bird’s tail is much more rounded and a distinction in texture and patterning between the feathers on its back and those underneath its body is discernable. The print did, in fact, derive from Alexander’s watercolour drawing but Sydenham Edwards (c. 1768-1819), as a botanical and zoological draughtsman, was employed to lend Alexander’s image more accuracy. There is another, less-finished, version of this drawing in a volume in the India Office Library collection, BL (Legouix, 1980, p. 70).”Doctor Shaw” is identified elsewhere in Staunton’s “Account” as being “of the British Museum”; this was George Shaw (1751-1813), the natural historian and co-founder of the Linnean Society who became assistant keeper of the natural history section of the British Museum from 1791 and keeper from 1807 till his death.For further information about the album, see comment for 1865,0520.193.
© Copyright
The copyright of the article belongs to the author, please keep the original link for reprinting.
THE END
