Elizabeth Gould
Elizabeth Gould (born July 18, 1804 in Ramsgate , England , † August 15, 1841 in England) was an English illustrator and the wife of the zoologist John Gould . She made many lithographs for his ornithological books . However, her work was overshadowed by her husband's fame, so that her reputation and importance for the scientific work of John Gould was almost forgotten.
Life
Elizabeth Gould was born into a military family. She worked as a teacher for a family in London and taught Latin, French and music. At the age of twenty-four she married John Gould, with whom she had seven children - three daughters (Eliza, Louisa and Sarah Gould) and four sons (John, who died in childhood, John Henry, Franklin and Charles Gould).
Her husband encouraged her to learn the new lithographic printing processes . For his first work, A Century of Birds from the Himalaya Mountains , she drew bird drawings on large limestone slabs based on her husband's sketches. The great inexperience of Elizabeth Gould can still be seen in these early works. To improve her lithographic technique, she took lessons from John Gould's collaborator Edward Lear .
From May 1838, she and the British naturalist John Gilbert accompanied her husband on his research trip to Australia and Tasmania. She took her eldest seven year old son with her and left the three youngest children in England. In September 1838 they arrived in Tasmania and made the acquaintance of the English rear admiral and polar explorer Sir John Franklin and his wife Jane Griffin (Lady Franklin). She soon gave birth to her sixth child in Hobart , Tasmania. She named it after John Franklin, in whose house she often stayed during her stay while John Gould did field research. During this time she implemented his results in drawings. In August 1840 the couple returned to England with their two children. She could no longer complete her work. She died the following year on August 15, 1841 at the age of 37 after the birth of her seventh child in childbed.
Lithographs
Elizabeth Gould made more than 600 lithographs and drawings of birds, mammals and plants. Many of her works have been featured in her husband's following publications:
- A Century of Birds from the Himalaya Mountains (1831 and 1832, 80 plates)
- The Birds of Europe (1832–37, 449 plates)
- A Monograph of the Ramphastidae, or Family of Toucans (1834, 34 plates)
- A Monograph of the Trogonidae (1835–38, 36 plates)
- A Synopsis of the Birds of Australia (1837–38, 73 plates)
- The Birds of Australia (1837–41, 84 plates)
- Icones Avium (1837–38, 18 plates)
After her death, John Gould, who himself was more of an entrepreneur than a draftsman, asked the lithographer Henry Constantine Richter to take over his wife's work. Many of Elizabeth Gould's lithographs were taken over by Richter for The Birds of Australia and published under his name.
Many of Elizabeth Gould's works are also mistakenly described today as works by her husband. Over time, John Gould commissioned other artists for the images of his works, including Joseph Wolf and William Matthew Hart . Most of the drawings come from an artist agency under Gabriel Bayfield , who worked for John Gould from 1831 to 1861.
Honors
John Gould named the Gouldian finch ( Chloebia gouldiae ) after her; Nicholas Aylward Vigors the Gould nectar bird ( Aethopyga gouldiae ) and George Robert Waterhouse the Gould mouse ( Pseudomys gouldii ).
aftermath
- Rolf Dircksen / Jens Dircksen : I know the birds: songbirds, woodpeckers, rocket-like birds, sailors, cuckoos , Fackelverlag, Olten / Stuttgart / Salzburg 1967 drawings by Elizabeth Gould and John Gould.
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Individual evidence
Web links
- Elizabeth Gould at Linda Hall Library of Science (English)
- Elizabeth Gould at Australian Museum (English)
- AH Chisholm: Elizabeth Gould . In: Douglas Pike (Ed.): Australian Dictionary of Biography . Melbourne University Press, Carlton (Victoria) 1966–2012 (English).
- Kenneth Spencer Research Library (short excerpt on Elizabeth and John Gould )
Other web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Gould, Elizabeth |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | English illustrator |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 18, 1804 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Ramsgate , England |
| DATE OF DEATH | August 15, 1841 |
| Place of death | England |