Search the Collection: Artists > John Gould
John Gould (1804-1881)
John Gould was a self-educated ornithologist and entrepreneur who realized that wealthy Victorians would pay for lavishly illustrated color plate books on birds. Because his own artistic skills were limited, he relied on others to translate his rough sketches into finished illustrations. His wife, Elizabeth was his first lithographer. After her untimely death, Gould hired some of the most talented natural history artists of the 19th century including Edward Lear and Joseph Wolf.
