Female Goosander and Female Smew, Plate CXCV after Lilian Medland, c. 1909

This is an original antique photogravure, printed in black and gray without added color, with two standing figures on an upright sheet. Fig. I, at the top, is a female Goosander facing left, held upright with a ragged crest, a long narrow hooked bill, a small white chin, and a brown head and upper neck that end sharply against the white foreneck and breast; a white panel shows on the folded wing. Fig. II, below, is a much smaller Smew in female plumage facing right, with a dark cap reaching down around the eye, white cheeks and throat, a short bill, and small white bars on the wing.

No name of either bird is printed on the plate. The figures are lettered "Fig I." and "Fig II." at the left, each has the scale note "1/4 scale", the fraction giving the size of the drawing against the living bird, and the plate number "PLATE CXCV." is at lower right; the initials "L.M.M." appear beside the upper scale note.

Charles Stonham's The Birds of the British Islands was published in London by E. Grant Richards in five volumes between 1906 and 1911, and this plate belongs to the third volume, which carries the account through the cormorants, herons, geese, swans and ducks. All of the plates are after drawings by Lilian M. Medland, who later married the ornithologist Tom Iredale and moved to Australia. Her drawings were reproduced in photogravure, a photomechanical intaglio process that keeps the soft gradations of tone of the original drawing, and the printed surface sits within a plate mark.

Drawn to the same scale, the two figures show the difference in size between the largest and the smallest of the sawbills, which makes the plate a good companion to the drake plates of both species.

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