Four fancy pigeons believed to have originated in Syria ... two Black Capuchins and two Damascenes depicted in a natural setting by British painter Joseph Williamson Ludlow (1840-1916), published c. 1880 as a full page chromolithograph in the rare 'Illustrated Book of Pigeons with Standards for Judging' by Robert Fulton (also known as 'Cassell's Pigeon Book'), and offered here as a high resolution scan of an original colour plate from the volume.
A quartet of fancy pigeons - two Black Capuchins and two Damascenes - depicted in a natural setting and captured in a high resolution scan of a chromolithograph published as one of 50 colour plates illustrating a rare late-19th century volume, 'The Illustrated Book of Pigeons with Standards for Judging', also known as 'Cassell's Pigeon Book', written by Robert Fulton and edited by Lewis Wright. The colour plates in the book were reproduced from original artworks painted by British ornithological artist, Joseph Williamson Ludlow (1840-1916). Ludlow usually portrayed domestic birds, often in realistic natural settings such as this. Between 1867 and 1886, he illustrated several other books on poultry and pigeons published by Cassell, Petter and Galpin of London, Paris and New York, as part of its natural history series. Black Capuchin and Damascene pigeons are short-faced and short-beaked fancy breeds thought to have originated in Syria. The Black Capuchin is also known as the Syrian Wammentauben Beirut pigeon. The Illustrated Book of Pigeons was published by Cassell in 1876. Over nearly 400 pages, it offered pigeon fanciers a comprehensive guide to breeding and raising fancy and ornamental pigeons or rock doves in a convenient and relatively compact form. The book ran through several editions and is still regarded as a useful reference work. However, although auction houses and antiquarian book and print dealers often sell individual colour pages from the book, complete examples in good condition with all their pages intact are now very rare.
Size: 8798px × 12317px
Location: 'The Illustrated Book of Pigeons' by Robert Fulton, illustrated by Joseph Williamson Ludlow (1876)
Photo credit: © Terence Kerr / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
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