Ring Dove or Wood Pigeon on a Mossy Bough, Hand Colored Print, Morris, 1896

This is an original wood engraved bird plate, colored by hand, captioned "RING DOVE." A large pigeon rests in profile facing right on a thick, moss green bough that runs from the lower right to a broken end at the upper left, where a thin dead shoot rises. The head is dark slate gray, the eye orange, and the bill orange yellow with a white base. On the side of the neck is a patch of scaled feathers in pale green, rose and cream. The breast is a soft lilac pink, the wings dark slate with scaled coverts, the flanks pale blue gray, and the feet pink.

The engraved caption below the picture reads "RING DOVE." with a full stop. There is no plate number above the picture and no engraver's credit on the sheet. Ring Dove is the older name for the wood pigeon, Columba palumbus.

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.