Red-breasted Merganser Drake, Plate CXCII after Lilian Medland, c. 1909

This is an original antique photogravure, printed in black and gray without added color, showing a drake Red-breasted Merganser swimming to the left on calm water. The dark head carries a ragged crest of long, loose feathers raised at the back, the slender bill is long and narrow, and a broad white collar divides the dark neck from the spotted breast. Black and white feathers show at the side of the breast, the back is dark, and pale feathers of the wing lie along the gray flank.

No name of the bird is printed on the plate. The lettering below the image reads "2/5 scale" at the center and "PLATE CXCII." at the right, the fraction giving the size of the drawing against the living bird, and the faint signature "L. M. Medland" appears in the water at lower right. The ragged crest, the white collar and the spotted breast identify the drake Red-breasted Merganser.

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 upright crest and alert pose give the plate a lively outline that reads well in a small room or a group of bird plates.

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