Pheasant in an Open Field with Trees, Hand Colored Game Bird Print, 1896

This is an original wood engraved bird plate, colored by hand, captioned "PHEASANT." A cock pheasant crouches low on open ground, facing right, its very long barred tail sweeping up and out to the upper left. The head and neck are deep blue green with a red bare patch around the eye and a pale bill. The body is copper and chestnut, each feather marked with a dark crescent, with white flecks across the back, and the folded wing is olive gray. Behind the bird a pale field runs back to a low line of gray trees with one tall, narrow tree rising above them. Green turf fills the foreground.

The engraved caption below the picture reads "PHEASANT." with a full stop. There is no plate number above the picture and no engraver's credit on the sheet. The pheasant is Phasianus colchicus.

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 fourth edition was issued in six volumes by John C. Nimmo, London, and this plate comes from 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.