Sicklebird, Epimachus speciosus: Monograph of the Paradiseidae, or Birds of Paradise, and Ptilonorhynchidae, or Bower-birds

Original hand-coloured lithograph by William Matthew Hart for Richard Bowdler Sharpe's Monograph of the Paradiseidae, or Birds of Paradise, and Ptilonorhynchidae, or Bower-birds. London, 1891-1898.

One of the most beautiful bird illustrations ever produced from the last of the great ornithological books of the 19th century.

William Matthew Hart (1830-1908) was a bird illustrator and lithographer who worked for John Gould from 1851. He began by making the patterns for the lithographic plates for Gould's monograph on Hummingbirds, as well as working on The Birds of Great Britain with Henry Constantine Richter. By 1870 Hart had become Gould's chief artist and lithographer. After Gould's death in 1881, Hart was employed by Richard Bowdler-Sharpe of the British Museum to complete Gould's work on the Birds of New Guinea and to produce illustrations for Sharpe's great work Monograph on the Birds of Paradise.

Handcoloured lithograph (54 x 36cm) mounted in a cream-coloured French matt (75cm x 56cm).