Feathered hordes and winged gems: colour and vitalism in Jardine and Selby's Illustrations of ornithology (1826–1843)

Edinburgh in the opening decades of the nineteenth century was a vibrant centre of ornithological enquiry and image-making. Most prominent among the city's ‘tribe of ornithologists’ were Sir William Jardine (1800–1874) and Prideaux John Selby (1788–1867), whose Illustrations of ornithology (1826–1843), published in parts, spanned nearly two decades. Containing over two-hundred hand-coloured plates depicting mostly rare or newly-discovered bird species, the Illustrations comprised two series, four volumes and nineteen parts. This article explores the different mechanisms for chromatic depiction, description and standardization employed in Jardine and Selby's work. It approaches Illustrations of ornithology as a collection of elaborately-coloured and aesthetically-motivated units of image and text, whose commercial success depended on both chromatic accuracy and life-like execution. Excavating the various iterations of the work, including manuscript pages and the preserved specimens themselves, the discussion unpicks the different iterations of colour embodied in its letterpress and plates. In doing so, it reveals the scientific, aesthetic, commercial and imperial agendas underpinning Jardine and Selby's Illustrations.