Female Long-tailed Duck and Female Eider after Lilian Medland, c. 1909

This is an original antique photogravure, printed in black and gray without added color, with two figures on an upright sheet. The upper bird is a Long-tailed Duck in female winter plumage, swimming to the left: the head pale with a dark crown and a dark patch on the cheek, the back brown with pale edges, the underparts white and the tail short and pointed. The lower bird is a female Eider crouched low among grasses and twigs on the ground, facing right, her brown plumage closely barred and her long sloping head and bill drawn in profile.

No name of either bird is printed on the plate. Each figure has its own scale note, "1/3 scale", and the plate number "PLATE CLXXXVIII." is at lower right, the fraction giving the size of the drawing against the living bird; faint initials "L.M.M." appear to the right of the lower scale note. The pale head with its dark cheek patch identifies the upper bird, and the barred brown plumage with the long wedge of head and bill marks the lower bird as the duck Eider.

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.

The contrast between the bird on open water and the bird sitting in cover makes this an engaging pair for a tall frame.

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