Elizabeth Gould (illustrator)
Encyclopedia
John Gould
John Gould was an English ornithologist and bird artist. The Gould League in Australia was named after him. 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...
. She produced many illustrations for his ornithological works.
Elizabeth was born in Ramsgate
Ramsgate
Ramsgate is a seaside town in the district of Thanet in east Kent, England. It was one of the great English seaside towns of the 19th century and is a member of the ancient confederation of Cinque Ports. It has a population of around 40,000. Ramsgate's main attraction is its coastline and its main...
, England. She married John Gould in January 1829, and he encouraged her to learn lithography and had his collaborator Edward Lear
Edward Lear
Edward Lear was an English artist, illustrator, author, and poet, renowned today primarily for his literary nonsense, in poetry and prose, and especially his limericks, a form that he popularised.-Biography:...
teach her. Becoming proficient with the art form she went on to use to create illustrations from John's drawings. She produced over 600 lithographs, which appeared with the illustrations of Edward Lear in:
- A Century of Birds from the Himalaya Mountains (1831 and 1832).
- The Birds of Europe (1832–37)
- A Monograph of the Ramphastidae, or Family of Toucans (1834)
- A Monograph of the Trogonidae (1835–38),
- A Synopsis of the Birds of Australia (1837–38)
- The Birds of Australia (1837–38)
- Icones Avium (1837–38)
Her early illustrations have been described as stiff, and while they improved with experience they remained quite formal compositions.
The Goulds and the oldest of their surviving 4 children travelled to Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
in 1838. She spent much of her time in Hobart
Hobart
Hobart is the state capital and most populous city of the Australian island state of Tasmania. Founded in 1804 as a penal colony,Hobart is Australia's second oldest capital city after Sydney. In 2009, the city had a greater area population of approximately 212,019. A resident of Hobart is known as...
as a guest of Jane Franklin
Jane Franklin
Jane, Lady Franklin was an early Tasmanian pioneer, traveller and second wife of the explorer John Franklin....
, while John travelled extensively collecting specimens she drew and painted his collection.
Elizabeth made hundreds of drawings from specimens for the publications Birds of Australia and A Monograph of the Macropodidæ, or Family of Kangaroos, as well as illustrations for the ornithology volume of Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
’s Zoology of the Voyage of HMS Beagle.
She bore one son while living in Australia, and gave birth to their eighth child when they returned to England in 1840. She died shortly thereafter.
The drawings she produced in Australia were made into lithographs by H. C. Richter and published under his name. Subsequently her reputation and importance became almost totally eclipsed by the fame of her husband.
The tropical finch Chloebia gouldiae and the sunbird Aethopyga gouldiae were named in her honour. A complete account of her life was published in the 1944 book The Story of Elizabeth Gould.
External links
- John Gould's Birds of Australia
- Linda Hall Library Portraits of 12 Scientific Illustrators from the 17th to the 21st Century