Psaropholus Ardens. [Red Oriole]

Description

original hand-colour lithograph. ornithological print from ‘The Birds of Asia’, volume II; Completed after the author’s death by R. Bowdler Sharpe.
Red Oriole is found in various South East Asian regions, specially Formosa (Taiwan) and Hainan. In Formosa, it is known as Oriolus traillii ardens, while the Hainan subspecies is Oriolus traillii nigellicauda. The male Red Oriole has a black hood and wings, a deep red body and tail, and a yellowish iris, while the female is a dark gray on the back with a light grayish belly and blackish streaks.
The 7 volume “Birds of Asia” featured some of the most vibrant varieties of birds to be found around the world due to the wide reaching natural fauna of the expansive geographical region. The work took 34 years to complete and is considered one of Gould’s greatest accomplishments rivalling in quality the works of J.J. Audubon.
Gould was especially drawn to the natural flora and delineated the bird’s surroundings with great detail. He created nearly 3000 hand-colored plates of animals in his extensive career. He gained much of his knowledge by observation and experience and contributed greatly to scientific knowledge at the time. Gould is believed to have done the original sketches for all of the plates. He utilised many talented artists to help create the finished lithograph including his wife Elizabeth Coxen Gould, Edward Lear, Joseph Wolf, William Hart, and H. C. Richter. Even at the time of publication, Gould’s plates were very expensive and only sold to a small set of subscribers. Due to the limited subscriber list, the plates remain rare and of high value for collectors today. His identification of the birds now nicknamed “Darwin’s finches” played a role in the inception of Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection. Gould’s work is referenced in Charles Darwin’s book “On the Origin of Species”.