Beschreibung:

GOULD, John (1804-1881). A Monograph of the Ramphastidae, or Family of Toucans . London: for the Author, [1833-]1834[-1835]. 2° (542 x 365mm). 33 hand-coloured lithographic plates by and after Edward Lear (10) and John and Elizabeth Gould (23), one uncoloured plate by and after George Scharf all printed by Charles Hullmandel. (Some light spotting and offsetting, one plate trimmed affecting imprint.) Contemporary green morocco gilt by Miller, 'Poland-House (Poland Street) Golden Square London [one endpaper watermarked '1837'; probably bound for Jacob Bell], boards with broad borders of pomegranate and leaf rolls between rows of triple gilt fillets, enclosing elaborate foliate rolls, spine gilt in compartments, lettered in 2 and with imprint at the foot, others with large flower tools, turn-ins gilt with floral rolls, gilt edges, silk marker (light rubbing and scuffing to extremities). Provenance : Jacob Bell, M.R.I. (1810-1859, gift to:) -- Library of the Royal Institution of Great Britain (presentation inscription on front free endpaper, dated 2 June 1859; small marginal blindstamp on title; recorded as the owner of a copy in Gould's Prospectus of ... Works on Ornithology, etc , [c. 1870], p.12; sale, Christie's London, 12 April 1972, lot 170). JACOB BELL'S FINELY-BOUND COPY OF THE FIRST EDITION OF GOULD'S FIRST MONOGRAPH . The toucan family is limited to Mexico, Central and South America and some West Indian islands. The Latin name Burhynchus or Ramphestes (in reference to the size of the beak) was suggested by Conrad Gesner ( Icones Avium , 1560, p.130), and Aldrovandus's corrupted form of the latter ( Ramphastos ) was, in turn, adopted by Linnaeus. Lear's remarkable images of toucans, which fill the plate, showing the young birds with the fully grown, are regarded as among the best of his zoological drawings; the uncoloured plate accompanies Richard Owen's final chapter on the anatomy of the toucan, written especially for the work. Gould went on to publish a second, enlarged edition of this Monograph in 1852-1854, which he considered as a separate work because of the number of new species described, and the proposal of a new division of the group into six genera rather than the two in the present edition. Lear's work was used for the second edition but was not credited, and his name was obliterated from the plates, and substituted by the names of Gould & Richter (cf. Peter Levi, Edward Lear , 1995, pp. 40-41). The previous (and probably first) owner of this copy was the pioneering pharmacist and politician Jacob Bell. Bell had worked in his father's pharmacy and attended lectures at the King's College, London in physic and comparative anatomy and at the Royal Institution on chemistry, whilst pursuing an interest in art (in later life, his friends would include Edwin Landseer and William Frith, and he commissioned the latter's 'Derby Day'). Bell then joined his father's pharmacy as a partner, and began his lifelong involvement in pharmaceutical policy -- he was as a founder of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, a Member of Parliament, and the founder, proprietor and editor of the Pharmaceutical Journal -- becoming acknowledged as one of the most important figures in the discipline's development during the nineteenth century. Bell's energy and achievements were typical of his epoch, and so too was his philanthropy; from the late spring of 1859 Bell knew that he was dying, and made arrangements for the dispersal of his wealth and collections in the intervals of lucidity which illness and opiates permitted him. On his death he bequeathed the Pharmaceutical Society £2,000, gifted 13 paintings to the nation (valued at £18,000-20,000), and, on 2 July 1859, ten days before his death, gave a group of works by Gould to the Royal Institution (the majority were bound by Miller, presumably for Bell, whose name has been pencilled directly below the binder's ticket in this volume). Anker 170; Fine Bird Books p. 101; Nis