Paul Gauci was a lithographer of Maltese

Maltese people

The Maltese are an ethnic group indigenous to the Southern European nation of Malta, and identified with the Maltese language. Malta is an island in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea...

 extraction, carrying on a business in London with his father, Maxim, and brother, William. The firm, located at 9 North Crescent, Bedford Square

Bedford Square

Bedford Square is a square in the Bloomsbury district of the Borough of Camden in London, England.Built between 1775 and 1783 as an upper middle class residential area, the sqare has had many distinguished residents, including Lord Eldon, one of Britain's longest serving and most celebrated Lord...

, was among the leading lithographers of the day, ranking with Charles Joseph Hullmandel

Charles Joseph Hullmandel

Charles Joseph Hullmandel was born in London where he maintained a lithographic establishment in Great Marlborough Street from about 1819 until his death....

 and Vincent Brooks, Day & Son

Vincent Brooks, Day & Son

Vincent Brooks, Day & Son was a major British lithographic firm most widely known for reproducing the weekly caricatures published in Vanity Fair magazine. The company was formed in 1867 when Vincent Brooks bought the name, good will and some of the property of Day & Son Ltd, which had gone into...

.

Maxim Gauci (1774–1854), born in Malta

Malta

Malta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...

, was an early exponent of lithography for botanical illustration. His firm completed works that included Nathaniel Wallich

Nathaniel Wallich

Nathaniel Wallich was a surgeon and botanist of Danish origin who worked in India initially in the Danish settlement near Calcutta and later joined the East India Company...

’s Plantae Asiaticae Rariores and James Bateman

James Bateman

James Bateman was a landowner and accomplished horticulturist. He developed Biddulph Grange after moving there around 1840, from nearby Knypersley Hall...

’s Orchidaceae of Mexico and Guatemala (1837-43), boasting the largest lithographic plates ever produced. Wilfrid Blunt had nothing but praise for Gauci, calling him “a master of the process, he ranged his tone from the palest of silvery greys to the richest velvet black; his outline is never mechanical or obtrusive.”