THE NATURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH SURFACE-FEEDING DUCKS
Longmans, Green, and Co. 1902 London, 107pp, 6 photogravures, 41 colored plates and 25 other illus, folio, ltd to 600 numbered copies. Dark green cloth spine and corners, medium green cloth boards with neatly rebacked spine. Item #001923
This impressive work on ducks was NEVER reprinted to the best of our knowledge. John Guille Millais (24 March 1865 – 24 March 1931), known as "Johnny" Millais, was an English artist, naturalist, gardener and travel writer who specialized in wildlife and flower portraiture. He travelled extensively around the world in the late Victorian period detailing wildlife often for the first time. He is noted for illustrations that are of a particularly exact nature. Millais is one of the most respected of British ornithologists and bird artists, producing between 1890 and 1914 a series of books on birds and other natural history subjects. In the study of ornithology he was renowned for his portraiture of wildfowl and game birds, the subjects of his three most famous works: Natural History of British Feeding Ducks; British Diving Ducks and British Game Birds. They rank amongst some of the finest work on wildfowl ever published. Each bird receives individual treatment in text and detailed exact chromolithographs, some of which are by his friend and pre-eminent bird artist of the day Archibald Thorburn (1860–1935). Each species is represented by two or three individuals on a plate drawn in attitudes of feeding, resting and courtship. The books are lavish and with just 600 original editions published are now prized as examples of High Victorian grandeur. Millais’ skills and private wealth allowed him to indulge his passions on a grand scale. His son Raoul Millais said "He was an astonishing man and his power of concentration was such that once he took up a subject he never left it until he knew more about it than anyone in the World"
Price: $1,400.00