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Title and statement of responsibility area
Title proper
Ariel Toucan
General material designation
Parallel title
Channel-billed Toucan
Other title information
Ramphastos vitellinus
Title statements of responsibility
Title notes
- Source of title proper: Caption title.
- Parallel titles and other title information: Title from Mousley: Rhamphastos ariel
Level of description
Item
Repository
Reference code
CA RBD MSG BW002-310
Edition area
Edition statement
Edition statement of responsibility
Class of material specific details area
Statement of scale (cartographic)
Statement of projection (cartographic)
Statement of coordinates (cartographic)
Statement of scale (architectural)
Issuing jurisdiction and denomination (philatelic)
Dates of creation area
Date(s)
Physical description area
Physical description
1 watercolour painting ; 56 x 39 cm + 1 leaf
Publisher's series area
Title proper of publisher's series
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Archival description area
Name of creator
(approximately 1720-approximately 1790)
Biographical history
Peter Paillou was born in London into a Huguenot family and was recognised in his own time as an eminent ‘bird painter’. In 1744 he began to paint for Taylor White and worked for him for almost thirty years, painting chiefly birds and mammals. He painted as well for Robert More, Joseph Banks, and for the Welsh naturalist Thomas Pennant. Many of his paintings of birds were used as the basis for book illustrations, often engraved by his colleague and fellow Huguenot, Peter Mazell. Paillou was elected to the Society of Artists and in 1763 he exhibited ‘A Piece of Birds, in Watercolours; the Hen of the Wood and Cock of the Red Game’. In 1778, to considerable approval, he also showed a picture of ‘A Horned Owl from Peru’, completely made from feathers.
Custodial history
Scope and content
Drawing of a Channel-billed Toucan from a 18th century specimen [modern geographical distribution: South America.] Attributed to Peter Paillou.
Notes area
Physical condition
Immediate source of acquisition
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Accruals
General note
Manuscript note on front of drawing: Ariel Toucan (Rhamphastos ariel)
General note
General note
Scientific name: Ramphastos vitellinus
Accompanying material
With manuscript text on accompanying leaf.
Accompanying material
Transcription of manuscript note on accompanying leaf: Ramphastos
Rostrum maximum, inane, convexum
extrorsum serratum
Nares pone maxillas
Lingua pennacea
Pedum digiti antici posticiq[ue] gemini. Lin. Sys.
Nat. p. 103
The Toucan
Ramphastos nigrirostris
R: Rostro nigro: carina compressa, gula lutea
fascia pectoris uropygio anoque sanguineis.
Rostrum nigrum, basi album, carina compressa:
Mandibula superiore in aliis serrata in
plerisque integra. Caput & Collum supra,
Dorsum, Abdomen, Alae & Cauda nigra. Gula
ad Basin mandibulae inferioris lateribus alba,
in medio aurantii coloris uti etiam totum
collum subtus. Fascia in pectore sanguinea
Anus & Uropygium sanguinea. Remiges
- Rectrices 10.
Habitat in Insulis Granadis.
Accompanying material
Translation of manuscript note on accompanying leaf: Ramphastos
The beak is very large, hollow, convex,
and serrated in a forward direction;
The nares are behind the mandibles;
The tongue is feather-like;
The foot has two toes to the front and two to the back. Lin. Sys.
Nat. p.103
The Toucan
Ramphastos nigrirostris [The black-beaked toucan]
R: with a black beak, dense rhamphotheca, yellow throat,
scarlet band on the breast, and a blood-red rump and posterior.
The beak is black, the base is white, the rhamphotheca is dense.
The upper mandible of some toucans is serrated but in
most it is smoothe. The head and top of the neck,
back, breast, wings and tail are black. The throat
is white on the sides at the base of the lower mandible,
in the middle it is a golden colour, which even covers the whole
lower part of the neck. There is a blood-red band on the breast,
and the posterior and rump are blood-red. There are
20 flight feathers on the wings. There are 10 flight feathers on the tail.
It lives in the Grenadine Islands.
Alternative identifier(s)
Volume number
Birds Volume 2, Painting 1