[Rubythroat Hummingbird]

[Rubythroat Hummingbird] 428. Rex Brasher. [Chickadee Valley near Kent CT: the author, 1929-32]. Photogravure by the Meriden Gravure Company, with color added by hand by Brasher or his niece using pochoir and/or an airbrush, signeed by Brasher in ink. Sheet size: 12 x 16in; 305 x 406mm.

Condition: some light spotting, remnants of cloth joint to verso of left margin. 

One plate from Brasher's magnum opus: "Birds and Trees of North America", published in 12 volumes, in an edition of less than 100 sets, between 1929 and 1932, with a total of over 860 plates.

"This monumental work is the most ambitious publication of colored plates executed in this century. Mr. Brasher's loving care bestowed on each hand-colored plate is in the tradition of a hundred years earlier...Brasher's 'Birds and Trees' belongs in a special category that is unique. Brasher has not written a great deal but his pages are interlarded with poetic imagery, often printed in contrasting italic or manuscript-style type. He has been content to stand on his paintings and the time-consuming method of their reproduction. His work stands apart on the sidelines of time, not to be judged with his contemporaries, nor indeed to be criticized. It is simply Rex Brasher" (Ripley & Scribner, Ornithological Books in Yale including the Library of W.C. Coe, p.39)