British Museum (Natural History): Recent Acquisitions

Abstract

MR. ROBERT W. OATES has presented a portrait of J. J. Audubon, the father of American ornithology. This portrait is a copy by Lance Calkin of the so-called hasty portrait which Audubon drew of himself in Liverpool in 1826, and which was reproduced in Buchanan's life of Audubon. Unable to find sufficient subscribers in the United States for his projected work on the birds of America, Audubon, at the age of forty-one, came to England for the purpose of finding additional supporters. After visiting a large number of towns in England and Scotland, exhibiting his pictures and meeting a number of well-known people, Audubon collected sufficient subscribers to enable him to commence publication of “The Birds of America”. This great work—unique of its kind—was published in London in four volumes (elephant folio), with life-size drawings of the different birds, between 1827 and 1838. Mr. J. F. Marshall has presented to the Trustees five large oil paintings of birds by R. Havell, who engraved many, if not all, the illustrations for Audubon's book.