Blackcap with Hanging Leaves, Hand Colored Wood Engraving, Morris, 1896

This is an original wood engraved bird plate, colored by hand, captioned "BLACKCAP." A single bird perches on a mossy green branch, facing left, with its body level and its tail stretched out to the right. It has a black cap reaching down to the eye, a gray face, nape and back, dark brown wings and pale gray underparts fading to white on the belly. Its gray legs grip the branch. Below and to the left, three toothed green leaves hang from a pink twig, and a leaf tip shows behind the bird's head.

The caption "BLACKCAP." is engraved in capitals in the lower margin. There is no number or other lettering above the picture, and no engraver's credit can be read within it. The Blackcap is Sylvia atricapilla. The black cap shown here is the mark of the male; the female's cap is reddish brown.

A History of British Birds was written by the Reverend Francis Orpen Morris (1810 to 1893), rector of Nunburnholme in Yorkshire. The wood blocks for the plates of the work were engraved by Benjamin Fawcett (1808 to 1893) of Driffield in Yorkshire. This plate comes from the fourth edition, issued in six volumes by John C. Nimmo of London, and belongs to the third volume, whose title page is dated 1896 and states that the plates are colored by hand. Each plate combines an engraved black key block with a printed gray tint, finished by hand in watercolor.

This is an original antique print, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed.