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2. Original watercolours for A Natural History of Birds, 3 vols (London, 1731–8).
Eleazar Albin published his three volume A Natural History of Birds in London between 1731 and 1738. The work was noteworthy for its beautiful engravings of birds drawn from ‘the life’ by Albin and his daughter Elizabeth.
Marsh’s Library possesses two volumes of the original watercolour paintings for the book. In May 1851, the Library noted that one of the 99 original water-colours in volume one had been ‘extracted’ with a blade. Four of the 102 images in the second volume had also been removed.
Images of birds were evidently very desirable as our copy of The Ornithology of Francis Willughby (London, 1678) has been mutilated by the removal of as many as 78 copper-plate engravings of birds.
Citation:
2. Original watercolours for A Natural History of Birds, 3 vols (London, 1731–8).,
Marsh's Library Exhibits,
accessed December 7, 2025,
https://www.marshlibrary.ie/digi/items/show/404
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