Lilian Medland Hand Numbered Limited Edition Print on Paper :"Pheasant I"
Title: Pheasant I
Dimensions (W x H ): Paper Size: 20 x 16 in | Image Size: 16 x 12 in
Edition | Medium: Each print is hand numbered, accompanied by a certificate signed by the Master Printer and is numbered to match the print. The editions are limited to 1880 copies. |
This Gouttelette print on paper is published with light-fast inks to BS1006 Standard onto acid-free calcium carbonate buffered stock, mould-made from 100% cotton and sourced from environmentally conscious paper suppliers. This product is exclusive to Rosenstiels.
About the Art: Superior Edition
About the Artist:
Lilian Medland was born on 29th May 1880 at North Finchley, London. She came from a well-to-do family; the daughter of a mother of Huguenot descent and her wealthy father, a landed proprietor who was also a Fellow of the Zoological Society. Educated at home by a governess, she enjoyed sketching out-of-doors, mountain climbing, skiing and skating.
As a girl, she reared two lion cubs, induced salamanders to breathe through their lungs by gradually extending their time out of water, and kept a woodpecker in her studio. She belonged to that band of emancipated women who, by about 1910, were bold enough to smoke and to wear knickerbockers when cycling.
She left home at 16 to train as a nurse at Guy’s Hospital. Between 1906 and 1911 she completed 318 monochrome plates to illustrate Charles Stonham’s five volumes on The Birds of the British Islands – a remarkable achievement, as an attack of diphtheria in 1907 left her almost completely deaf. Lively and independent, she continued nursing and painting. In 1911, she was invited to illustrate a revised edition of William Yarrell’s A History of British Birds. However, the First World War intervened and the book was never completed, but in 1972 the 248 paintings she had done were discovered in immaculate condition.
At the St Giles registry office on 8th June 1923, Lilian married Tom Iredale, who she met while working at the British Museum. That same year they settled in Sydney. In Australia, Lilian painted thirty species of birds for the Australian Museum, which were issued as postcards in 1925. In the 1930s she completed 53 plates depicting 883 Australian birds for Mathews. She illustrated articles in various journals and painted plates for her husbands Birds of Paradise and Power Birds, Birds of New Guinea, and his proposed book on Australian kingfishers. Her lovely painting of the Providence petrel Pterodroma Solandri was used on a Norfolk Island stamp issued in 1961.
Lillian Iredale died of cancer at her home at Queenscliffe on 16th December 1955.
