STUDER'S POPULAR ORNITHOLOGY. The Birds of North America: Drawn and Colored from Life. One Hundred and Nineteen Colored Plates, representing upwards of seven hundred different species and varieties of North American birds, including a popular account of their habits and characteristics

Beautiful collection of 119 striking chromolithographic plates comprising 700 birds found in North America with accompanying descriptive text. Condition: Very Good. Volume I of a two-volume set. BOOK INFO Published in 1878 by Jacob H. Studer in Columbus, Ohio. First edition, first printing, containing the highest quality images (slightly degraded with subsequent editions) printed in color and finished by hand. Rebound in fine 1/2 morocco over leather-textured and patterned cloth. Boards ruled in gilt, an embossed gilt title to front cover. Spine with slightly raised gilded bands separating compartments ruled in blind with tooled gilt devices. All edges gilt. Heavy folio, 15" x 12.5" x 2" thick. Volume I only (containing all the color plates). Collated and complete, with all plates: [ii], 182 [8] pp., 119 tissue-guarded color plates, black and red title page. Note: spine erroneously labels the volume as Volume II. The Birds of North America is a significant ornithological work that aimed to make ornithology accessible to a broader audience, as only the wealthiest of buyers could afford earlier such work, like the famously expensive works by Audobon. It features 119 lithographed plates printed in color, finished by hand after drawings by Jasper. The book is a vibrant and influential late 19th-century American ornithological work, created with the aim of making ornithology accessible to families, schools, and amateur naturalists. Unlike earlier, more expensive natural history folios, Studer's publication was conceived as a more affordable guide, contributing to its wide popularity and multiple subsequent editions. The illustrations in the book combine scientific clarity with a distinctly charming visual style, bridging the divide between academic ornithology and popular natural history. It is both one of the best and one of the last great ornithology compendiums of colored bird plates. ABOUT THE ARTIST Theodore Jasper (1814, in Prussia - 1897, in Ohio) was a portrait painter and photographic colorist active in Columbus, Ohio from circa 1866 to 1883. From the 1840s to the 1860s he worked in New York and Connecticut. His paintings formed the basis for Studer's Popular Ornithology. ABOUT THE PUBLISHER Jacob Henry Studer (1840 -1904) was a printer, lithographer, painter, and popular ornithologist active in Columbus, Ohio from the 1860s to the 1880s. Studer was active in the American Ornithologists' Union and the Ohio Society of New York. CONDITION REPORT The book is in Very Good antiquarian condition. Refreshed endpapers. Exterior and binding: VG+ Joints and hinges are firm, pages are tight (nice to see for this large, heavy volume!). Lightly to moderately rubbed boards and extremities. Corners lightly bumped. Fading of the textured cloth. Some dust to the gilt work but it remains lustrous. Exterior and binding in much better condition than normally found. Interior: Most importantly, the plate paper is white, and the images themselves are clean and vibrant and colorful and in generally FINE condition. Toned pages. 1" tear bottom of dedication page. Larger water dampening stain at foot of fore-edge from the frontispiece through page 9-10. Smaller water dampening stain along fore-edge margin from page 177 through final page of the index. Several tissue guards detached, a few others with creases, small tears. No writing or former owner bookplates. Signs of handling - areas with marginal finger soiling, a few creases. No writing, ex libris marks or former owner bookplates. A few spots of foxing to prelims and a few of the tissue guards otherwise clean. .…