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Chapter 1. The First of the Family
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Something of the wonder and curiosity that was inspired in naturalists by the arrival of bird specimens in Europe is captured in a painting by Ramsey Richard Reinagle (1775–1862). Painted around 1800, it shows a taxidermist examining the skin of a plumed bird of paradise newly arrived from foreign parts, with an Argus Pheasant lying on the table beside him. Some controversy exists over the identity of the man in the painting. An old inscription on the reverse identifies him as ‘Mr Thomson, animal and bird preserver to the Leverian and British Museums’, but during recent decades the picture has been listed as a portrait of the celebrated English ornithologist John Latham (1740–1837). That this identification is incorrect is shown by the presence of a Lyrebird specimen hanging on the rear wall. Lyrebirds did not arrive in England from Australia until around 1800, by which time Latham would have been 60 years old. The most likely interpretation of the painting is that it shows the otherwise unknown Mr Thomson inspecting the recent arrival and considering its suitability for proper stuffing.
The Greater and the Lesser Birds were both portrayed in one of the first of the spectacular folio books that deal with the birds of paradise. It was written by the French zoologist Francois Levaillant (1753–1824) and published in 1806. Its great distinction lies in its plates, which were drawn by one of the finest of all bird artists, Jacques Barraband (1767–1809), who had the most extraordinary ability to represent the many different textures that feathers may have. Until the last decades of the twentieth century, his ornithological reputation rested largely on these engraved hand-coloured plates. But they give little hint of Barraband’s true talent. The exquisite watercolours on which the engravings were based were almost entirely unknown. They had been acquired privately soon after they were painted and had remained in private possession, carefully preserved in albums that have protected them from fading ever since. It was only during the 1980s that the collection was split up and the full beauty and accuracy of the artist’s work was revealed to the world.
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