Price on request

Numbered 12 upper right

Gouache with pen and ink border

203 x 163 mm., 8 x 6 ¼ in.

Provenance

Bought from Christopher Powney, 1968

Private Collection, UK

Exhibited

London, Christopher Powney, William Lewin – Exhibition of British Birds drawn in Gouache, 10^th to 20^th December 1968

Private Collection, UK

Engraved

For The Birds of Great Britain, with Their Eggs, Accurately Figured, first edition, 1789-1794, pl.12

Lewin grew up in Stepney, east London, the son of a mariner. In 1773 he was working as a pattern drawer but by 1783 he is recorded as an artist specialising in natural history subjects. He is best known for The Birds of Great Britain, with Their Eggs, Accurately Figured, published between 1789 and 1794. It included 323 watercolour sketches of birds.

His son John William Lewin (1770-1819) helped his father on The Birds of Great Britain and in 1800 travelled to Australia and became one of the first professional artists working there, producing topographical and ornithological watercolours.

Thumbnail panels:

William Lewin 1747-1795

Lewin grew up in Stepney, east London, the son of a mariner. In 1773 he was working as a pattern drawer but by 1783 he is recorded as an artist specialising in natural history subjects. He is best known for The Birds of Great Britain, with Their Eggs, Accurately Figured, published between 1789 and 1794. It included 323 watercolour sketches of birds.

His son John William Lewin (1770-1819) helped his father on The Birds of Great Britain and in 1800 travelled to Australia and became one of the first professional artists working there, producing topographical and ornithological watercolours.