Iconographie des Pigeons
View Iconographie des Pigeons |
In 2008, Naturalis acquired the 19th century monograph on pigeons by Charles-Lucien Bonaparte, Iconographie des Pigeons. The book is now available digitally, indexed both by original species name and English (vernacular) name.
The book, which was first published in 1857, contains 55 hand-coloured lithographs of pigeons. Bonaparte was one of the foremost ornithologists of his time and a nephew of Napoleon. In 1849 and 1850 he worked in Leiden on the bird collection, which he believed to be the greatest ornithological treasure of his time. He worked day and night rearranging the entire collection and describing many new species and genera. His famous book on bird taxonomy (Conspectus Generum Avium [Overview of bird genera]) was largely composed and subsequently published in Leiden. Afterwards, he returned to Paris and started working on Iconographie des Pigeons.
This is an addition to Histoire naturelle generale des pigeons, as published by Coenraad Jacob Temminck. Temminck would later become the first director of the ’s Rijks Museum van Natuurlijke Historie (National Museum of Natural History, present-day NCB Naturalis). He had worked on this pigeon book, with aquarelles made by Pauline de Courcelles, from 1808 to 1811. Unfortunately, however, the work, which was to contain a lithograph of every known pigeon species, remained unfinished. Bonaparte, on his part, was also unable to complete the work, as he became ill and died in 1857.
Posthumously, the already completed texts and plates were brought to publication by a colleague. Most plates were made by the French artist Oudart. This rare book is very important to the collection of NCB Naturalis, as Bonaparte refers to specimens in the Leiden collection.
 |
 |
 |
Thursday, August 11, 2011