Smew Drake Swimming, Plate CXCIV after Lilian Medland, c. 1909

This is an original antique photogravure, printed in black and gray without added color, showing a drake Smew swimming to the left on still water. The plumage is mainly white, with a black patch around the eye and lores, a black line along the back of the white crest, and two fine black lines curving down the side of the breast. The back is black, the flank finely vermiculated in gray, and the short bill shows the toothed edge of the sawbills.

No name of the bird is printed on the plate. The lettering below the image reads "5/8 scale" at the center and "PLATE CXCIV." 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 white plumage with the black eye patch and the black lines on the breast identify the drake Smew, the smallest of the sawbills that visit Britain.

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 pale, finely drawn bird on pale water gives the plate a light, airy quality that suits a bright room.

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