Collection: Art prints by John Gould

John Gould was a British naturalist, ornithologist and illustrator and is considered one of the most extraordinary and influential figures in 19th century natural history illustration - a man whose work crossed the boundaries between science and art, between systematic research and pictorial beauty, with an energy and ambition that made him one of the most influential figures in natural history of his time. He was born in Lyme Regis in Dorset in 1804 and grew up as the son of a gardener, which gave him early access to nature and the gardens of the English upper classes. With no formal scientific or artistic training, he developed a position through tireless observation, practical experience and exceptional organizational skills that eventually led him to the forefront of British ornithology of his generation.

Gould began his career as a taxidermist at the Zoological Society of London, where he quickly gained renown for his ability to masterfully prepare and preserve birds and other animals. The decisive step in his career, however, was the realization that the scientific description of new bird species had to be accompanied by pictorial representations of the highest quality in order to be effective. Together with his wife Elizabeth, who was an exceptionally talented draughtswoman and lithographer and whose artistic contribution to his early work was long underestimated, he began the series of monumental folio volumes that would immortalize his name. Elizabeth's death in 1841 was a profound personal loss that had a lasting effect on the further course of his work and forced him to collaborate with other artists, including Edward Lear and William Hart.

From the 1830s onwards, Gould established himself as the central figure in British ornithological illustration. A central feature of his work is the combination of scientific systematics and pictorial splendor, which makes his folio volumes masterpieces that are still counted among the most beautiful publications in natural history today. His trip to Australia between 1838 and 1840 in particular, which he undertook together with his wife and which confronted him with a bird world that surpassed everything he had ever known in its strangeness and colorfulness, produced some of his most important works. His multi-volume works on the birds of Australia, Asia and Europe as well as his monographs on hummingbirds and other bird groups are among the most impressive achievements of 19th century natural history book art and combine ornithological meticulousness with a pictorial splendor that has its models in Flemish book illumination and 18th century botanical illustration.

In addition to his activities as an author and editor, Gould was an exceptionally energetic and enterprising personality who marketed his works in lavish subscription editions, building up a network of collectors, scientists and wealthy nature lovers throughout Europe and North America. This commercial side of his work was inseparable from his scientific ambition and provided the financial basis for the lavish production of his folio volumes, the production of which was one of the most expensive undertakings in Victorian bookmaking. His connection to Charles Darwin, to whom he identified the birds from his Galapagos voyage and thus made a decisive contribution to his theory of evolution, also lends his scientific work a dimension that extends far beyond ornithology.

John Gould died in London in 1881, leaving behind a body of work of extraordinary scope and lasting importance. His folio volumes, many of which contain thousands of hand-colored lithographs, are among the most sought-after and valuable books on the antiquarian book market today and fetch extraordinary prices at auction. Today, John Gould is considered the most important bird illustrator of the 19th century and one of the most influential figures in Victorian natural history, whose work is still regarded as the benchmark for scientific illustration in its combination of scientific systematics, artistic splendor and publishing ambition.