Alexander Fussell or Fussel (c. 1814 – 1881) was an English artist and illustrator. He drew the bird illustrations for William Yarrell's 1843 History of British Birds .
Fussell painted in various media, including watercolour, gouache, and oil on canvas. His subjects included The prize calf, The park sweeper, Uncle Toby and the Widow Wadman, and The letter, after Thomas Faed. [1]
Fussell undertook the large task of illustrating William Yarrell's 1843 History of British Birds . Yarrell states that Fussell drew "nearly five hundred" of the 520 wood-engravings mentioned on the book's title-page. The work began in 1837 and continued for six years, Yarrell publishing at the rate of one instalment, containing three sheets, every two months. Many of the drawings were from skins or stuffed specimens, though every bird species is illustrated with a lifelike drawing of the bird standing (or rarely, flying or swimming) in a natural setting. Additional drawings depict nests, feathers, and details of bird anatomy including feet, breastbones, and windpipes. [2] The work was hugely influential. [3]
According to The New York Times of 1888, Fussell contributed to the illustration of another famous book, Isaac Walton's Compleat Angler , the fourth edition published by John Major in London in 1844. Paintings of fish by Abraham Cooper and W. Smith were transferred manually to the woodblocks before cutting. Fussell did the drawings, which were then wood-engraved by John Jackson and Mason Jackson. [4]
Fussell "transferred Mr. Hering's sketches to the wood" for John Paget's 1839 Hungary and Transylvania, a book with "numerous illustrations" (47 are listed) of buildings, landscapes, curiosities and peasants. [5]
Hugh Edwin Strickland was an English geologist, ornithologist, naturalist and systematist. Through the British Association, he proposed a series of rules for the nomenclature of organisms in zoology, known as the Strickland Code, that was a precursor of later codes for nomenclature.
Sir William Jardine, 7th Baronet of Applegarth FRS FRSE FLS FSA was a Scottish naturalist. He is known for his editing of a long series of natural history books, The Naturalist's Library.
Prideaux John Selby FRSE FLS was an English ornithologist, botanist and natural history artist.
William Yarrell was an English zoologist, prolific writer, bookseller and naturalist admired by his contemporaries for his precise scientific work.
Howard Saunders was a British businessman, who later in life became a noted ornithologist, specialising in gulls and terns.
Wood engraving is a printmaking technique, in which an artist works an image into a block of wood. Functionally a variety of woodcut, it uses relief printing, where the artist applies ink to the face of the block and prints using relatively low pressure. By contrast, ordinary engraving, like etching, uses a metal plate for the matrix, and is printed by the intaglio method, where the ink fills the valleys, the removed areas. As a result, the blocks for wood engravings deteriorate less quickly than the copper plates of engravings, and have a distinctive white-on-black character.
Charles Robert Leslie was an English genre painter.
Isaac Sprague was a self-taught landscape, botanical, and ornithological painter. He was America's best known botanical illustrator of his day.
Josiah Wood Whymper was a British wood-engraver, book illustrator and watercolourist.
Illustrations of the Family of Psittacidae, or Parrots is an 1832 book containing 42 hand-coloured lithographs by Edward Lear. He produced 175 copies for sale to subscribers as a part-publication, which were later bound as a book. Lear started painting parrots in 1830 when he was 18 years old, and to get material for his book he studied live birds at the London Zoo and in private collections. The latter included those of Edward Smith Stanley, later 13th Earl of Derby, who had a large menagerie at Knowsley Hall, and Benjamin Leadbeater, a taxidermist and trader in specimens. Lear drew onto lithographic plates for printing by Charles Joseph Hullmandel, who was known for the quality of his reproductions of fine art.
The Natural History of Ireland is a four volume work by William Thompson. The first three volumes were published by Reeve and Benham, London between 1849 and 1851. Volume 4 was published by Henry G. Bohn, London in 1856. The Natural History of Ireland is very influential of later developments.
John Van Voorst was an English publisher of natural history books. His publications were noted for their good quality, reasonable prices and the frequent inclusion of superior illustrations by notable artists.
William Yarrell's A History of British Birds was first published as a whole in three volumes in 1843, having been serialised, three sheets every two months, over the previous six years. It is not a history of ornithology but a natural history, a handbook or field guide systematically describing every species of bird known to occur in Britain. A separate article of about six pages, containing an image, a description, and an account of worldwide distribution, together with reports of behaviour, is provided for each species.
John Thompson was a British wood-engraver. He is best known for his contribution to William Yarrell's 1843 History of British Birds. He was described as the most distinguished wood-engraver of his time.
In the history of Hungary indigenat was conferring the rights of citizenship and nobility upon foreign nationals.
Joseph John Jenkins was a British engraver and watercolor painter. He is best known for his portraits and landscapes paintings.
T. W. Wood was an English zoological illustrator responsible for the accurate drawings in major nineteenth century works of natural history including Darwin's The Descent of Man and Wallace's The Malay Archipelago. He studied the courtship display behaviour of pheasants, observing them closely and publishing the first description of the double-banded argus pheasant. He illustrated many books, often of birds but also of moths and mammals.
Henry Marriott Paget was a British painter and illustrator, who signed his work "HMP".
John Hobart Caunter was an English cleric and writer. Serving briefly in India as a cadet, he entered the Church and was for 19 years the Incumbent Minister of Portland Chapel in Marylebone, London. He wrote chiefly on Biblical subjects and on India, his best-known work being a collection of tales, The Romance of History. India (1836).
A History of British Fishes is a natural history book by William Yarrell, serialised in nineteen parts from 1835, and then published bound in two volumes in 1836. It is a handbook or field guide systematically describing every type of fish found in the British Isles, with an article for each species.