James Cummins Bookseller

c 1837.

Price: $7,500.00

About the item

Pictorial title with watercolor vignette, 156 drawings of birds (61 finished water colors; the others highly detailed pencil drawings) on 37 leaves, and 30 finished watercolor drawings of British birds’ eggs, natural size, on 3 leaves, all captioned in ink, on English paper watermarked 1837. Manuscript index at front. 1 vols. Oblong folio (235 x 335 mm). Contemporary half dark calf and marbled boards, with leather label on upper cover "British Birds" For Lowe, see Royal Astronomical Society. Monthly Bulletins vol. 49 (February 1889).

Item #316371

A superior ornithological album of well-finished watercolors and pencil drawings of British birds on a Linnean classification, by Arthur Swann Howard Lowe (1826-1888). Youngest son of Alfred J. Lowe of Highfield House, Nottinghamshire, Lowe joined the Nottinghamshire Militia and ultimately rose to the rank of colonel and commander of the regiment. Lowe was a talented amateur scientist whose interests included birds, astronomy, meteorology. His elder brother Edward J. Lowe (1825-1900) was a prolific contributor on astronomical and meteorological subjects, and an authority on ferns.
Lowe was a long time member of the Royal Astronomical Society, and his obituary noted: “He rendered material assistance to his brother, Mr. E. J. Lowe, in the preparation of a work on ‘The Climate of Nottingham.’ He was an excellent draughtsman, and undertook many illustrations of birds and their eggs. All the drawings of freshwater Mollusca, published in ‘The Conchology of Nottingham,’ were made by him”.