Goosander Drake Swimming, Plate CXCI after Lilian Medland, c. 1909

This is an original antique photogravure, printed in black and gray without added color, showing a drake Goosander swimming to the right on calm water. The dark head is full and rounded at the nape, without a ragged crest, and the long, narrow hooked bill is held level. The neck, breast and flank are white without spots, the back is black, and the white of the folded wing shows as a long pale panel toward the tail.

No name of the bird is printed on the plate. The lettering below the image reads "1/2 scale" at the center and "PLATE CXCI." at the right, the fraction giving the size of the drawing against the living bird, and the signature "L. M. Medland" is drawn in the water at lower right. The rounded dark head, the unspotted white breast and the long, narrow bill of a sawbill identify the drake Goosander, the largest of the British sawbills.

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 long, low figure and the clean division of dark and white suit a wide frame and a simple mount.

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