Shoveler Duck Feeding at the Surface after Lilian Medland, c. 1909

This is an original antique bird print, a photogravure printed in black and gray, uncolored. It shows a female Shoveler swimming to the right with the head stretched forward and the long, broad bill laid flat along the surface of the water, in the feeding attitude of the species. The plumage is brown throughout, the head finely streaked, the back and flanks marked with dark feather centers and pale edges, and the wing tips cross above the tail at the left. The water is drawn in light, broken ripples.

The sheet is lettered "PLATE CLXXIII." in italic capitals at lower right. Below the image is the note "1/2 scale", meaning the bird is drawn at half its natural size. The artist's signature "L. M. Medland" is written in the image at lower left.

The plate comes from The Birds of the British Islands by Charles Stonham, published in London by E. Grant Richards in five volumes between 1906 and 1911. This sheet belongs to the third volume, which takes the water birds in systematic order, from the cormorants and herons through the geese and swans to the ducks. The illustrations are after drawings by Lilian M. Medland and are reproduced in photogravure, a photomechanical intaglio process that carries the soft tones of a wash drawing and leaves a plate mark around the image. As throughout the work, no name is printed beneath the bird; each plate carries only its number, a note of the scale of reproduction and the artist's signature. Medland later married the ornithologist Tom Iredale and moved to Australia.

Printed in soft black and gray with wide margins, the plate suits a plain frame with a generous mat, alone or beside other plates from the same volume.

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