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Thomas Bell’s A Monograph of the Testudinata is one of the great reptile books, containing the finest series
of colored plates of turtles ever published. A dental surgeon and professor
of zoology, Bell was also a leading English naturalist when he began
his ambitious attempt to summarize all the world’s turtles, living
and extinct. Working with Bell to produce the forty plates was natural
history artist James de Carle Sowerby, to whom Bell would send live
specimens. But the genius of the published plates is largely attributable
to Edward Lear (known to generations for his nonsense verse), whose
reputation as the finest natural history lithographer of his age had
earlier been established by a monumental folio on parrots.
Tortoises are troublesome subjects, all too often drawn as mere doorstops, with at best the vivacity of a limpet. Lear imparted to them the curiosity, the individuality, the roving eye and quizzical alertness of his parrots. No one since has equaled him in conveying the gestalt of the turtle. In addition to the forty colored plates of Bell’s Monograph – left uncompleted on his publisher’s bankruptcy – this Octavo Edition includes the twenty-one additional plates by Lear and Sowerby that were issued in 1872.
The original book imaged for this digital edition:
15 1/2 x 11 3/8 inches (394 x 289 mm)
Tortoises are troublesome subjects, all too often drawn as mere doorstops, with at best the vivacity of a limpet. Lear imparted to them the curiosity, the individuality, the roving eye and quizzical alertness of his parrots. No one since has equaled him in conveying the gestalt of the turtle. In addition to the forty colored plates of Bell’s Monograph – left uncompleted on his publisher’s bankruptcy – this Octavo Edition includes the twenty-one additional plates by Lear and Sowerby that were issued in 1872.
The original book imaged for this digital edition:
15 1/2 x 11 3/8 inches (394 x 289 mm)
Lear’s Lively Lithographs
The stunning hand-colored plates of turtles in Thomas Bell’s A Monograph of the Testudinata resulted from drawings by the illustrator James de Carle Sowerby made into lithographs by Edward Lear (1812-1888). Nonsense verse writer Lear was also an excellent artist and, after his eyesight seriously failed about 1836, he specialized in landscapes. As he wrote to his eldest sister at the time: “…my eyes are so sadly worse, that no bird under an ostrich [in size] shall I soon be able to do.” Before achieving his fame as a writer and landscape painter, Lear had begun his career as a painter of birds. In 1830, he decided to do a book of his own, on parrots, which was issued in 12 parts between 1830 and 1832. This book instantly established his reputation, for as one prominent naturalist wrote at the time: …The red and yellow macaw…is in my estimation equal to any figure ever painted by Barraband or Audubon, for grace of design, perspective, or anatomical accuracy.” What was unusual about Lear’s book on parrots – and what must have brought him to the attention of Sowerby and Bell as a lithographer – was that Lear, unlike Audubon and other contemporary artists, specialized in drawing living animals and thus was able to give his illustrations a truly life-like quality and sometimes even personalities. Lear apparently maintained a lasting friendship with Bell, for in 1871 Bell sent him seeds from Selborne to plant at his own home.
The stunning hand-colored plates of turtles in Thomas Bell’s A Monograph of the Testudinata resulted from drawings by the illustrator James de Carle Sowerby made into lithographs by Edward Lear (1812-1888). Nonsense verse writer Lear was also an excellent artist and, after his eyesight seriously failed about 1836, he specialized in landscapes. As he wrote to his eldest sister at the time: “…my eyes are so sadly worse, that no bird under an ostrich [in size] shall I soon be able to do.” Before achieving his fame as a writer and landscape painter, Lear had begun his career as a painter of birds. In 1830, he decided to do a book of his own, on parrots, which was issued in 12 parts between 1830 and 1832. This book instantly established his reputation, for as one prominent naturalist wrote at the time: …The red and yellow macaw…is in my estimation equal to any figure ever painted by Barraband or Audubon, for grace of design, perspective, or anatomical accuracy.” What was unusual about Lear’s book on parrots – and what must have brought him to the attention of Sowerby and Bell as a lithographer – was that Lear, unlike Audubon and other contemporary artists, specialized in drawing living animals and thus was able to give his illustrations a truly life-like quality and sometimes even personalities. Lear apparently maintained a lasting friendship with Bell, for in 1871 Bell sent him seeds from Selborne to plant at his own home.
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