Fan-tailed Cuckoo, Brush Cuckoo, Chestnut-breasted Cuckoo (1890-1891)

Title: Fan-tailed Cuckoo, Brush Cuckoo, Chestnut-breasted Cuckoo

Latin name: Cacomantis Flabelliformis, Cacomantis Insperatus, Cacomantus Castaneiventus

Origin: Melbourne, Australia

Artist: Gracius Broinowski (1837-1913)

Year: 1890-1891

Technique: Original chromolithography on paper

Size (inc. mat): 49.5 x 36 cm Size image: 32.5 x 22.3 cm

Professionally matted in acid-free museum quality mat-board.

Gracius Joseph Broinowski (7 March 1837 – 11 April 1913) was a Polish-Australian artist and ornithologist. He was born in the village of Walichnowy in central Poland, the son of a landowner and military officer. He studied languages, classics, and art at Munich University. Around 1857, he joined the crew of a windjammer bound for Australia, leaving the ship at Portland, Victoria.

In the 1880s, he began to publish illustrated works on Australian natural history. First came The Birds and Mammals of Australia, followed in 1888 by The Cockatoos and Nestors of Australia and New Zealand, and The Birds of Australia in 1891.

The technique used for these plates is chromolithography, a popular printing process developed in the 19th century. Lithographic stones were used as a medium to print an image onto a piece of paper. For every single colour, a separate stone had to be used. This technique was particularly useful for scientific publications, as it allowed the images to depict the species in their natural colours.  

Chromolithography: Original late-nineteenth ornithological print, published and printed in Germany. The technique used for this print is chromolithography, a form of planographic printing. Planographic printing involves printing from a flat surface, the most common method being lithography (from the Greek lithos = stone). This technique was developed in the 19th century and allowed for larger print runs, greater detail, and efficient printing across many different formats. Music scores, sheet music, classroom posters, magazine covers, theatre posters, and book illustrations—lithographically produced images were applied to a wide variety of uses. Modern printing techniques, such as offset printing used for newspapers and other full-colour illustrations, gradually replaced lithography.

Chromolithography (chroma = colour) was a method of colour printing developed in the 19th century. The initial chromolithographic technique involved the use of multiple lithographic stones—one for each colour—and remained extremely expensive when executed for the highest-quality results. Depending on the number of colours involved, a single chromolithograph could take even highly skilled workers months to produce. To make a premium reproduction print, historically referred to as a "chromo", a lithographer would work with a finished painting in front of them, gradually creating and correcting the many stones using proofs to match the original artwork as closely as possible, sometimes utilising dozens of individual colour layers.