Tufted Duck Drake Feeding near Reeds after Lilian Medland, c. 1909

This is an original antique photogravure, printed in black and gray without added color, showing a drake Tufted Duck swimming to the left with the head lowered and the tip of the bill touching the water. The black head carries the drooping tuft of feathers at the nape, the iris is drawn pale, and the black breast, back and tail contrast sharply with the clean white flank. Tall reeds rise from the water at the right, and a band of distant reeds runs along the far bank.

No name of the bird is printed on the plate. The lettering below the image reads "1/2 scale" at the center and "PLATE CLXXXII." 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 nape tuft, the pale eye and the black and white pattern leave no doubt that this is the drake Tufted Duck.

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 strong contrast of black and white makes this one of the more graphic plates in the series, and it reads well from a distance.

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