A fine portrait, of Alfred Malherbe, titled and dated 1845.

ALFRED MALHERBE (1804-1865). - The Woodpecker Man.

A fine original portrait, of Alfred Malherbe, titled and dated 1845.

Alfred Malherbe was a French lawyer and judicial officer with a passion for natural history and a particular fondness for birds, which he collected from all over Europe. He was the president of his local natural history society in the Lorraine region of NE France and director of the museum in Metz for the last twenty years of his life.

In the 1840s and 1850s, Malherbe published a number of books on Algerian and Sicilian birds and contributed articles to ornithological journals, including papers on newly discovered species in the Picidae family.

His magnum opus - on woodpeckers - was published in four volumes between 1861 and 1863. The two text volumes outline the physical characteristics and classification history for more than 200 species of the Picidae family, half of which were discovered by Malherbe or first described in his detailed publication. The plate volumes feature more than 120 vibrant, hand-painted lithographs produced by C Delahaye, A Mesnel, and P Oudart under specific directions from Malherbe.

It remains the most comprehensive series ever published on woodpeckers, and 120 copies of the first edition were produced. The last set to appear at auction was sold for £24,000 in 2018. The original drawings for the work sold at auction for £56,000 in 1998.

The image is certainly of Malherbe, and he also appears in a family group portrait which was painted in 1852, and sold at auction in 2010. The title does not conform to the signature of Malherbe as recorded on a label to one of his exhibits in the Metz Museum, so this is a contemporary portrait, rather than a self-portrait.

Dimensions: 215mm x 170mm. Traces of edge mounting on the reverse.