Ornithologie d'Angola. Ouvrage publié sous les hospices du ministère de la marine et des colonies

First edition of José Vicente Barbosa du Bocage's Ornithologie d'Angola, published in Lisbon by the Imprimerie Nationale under the auspices of the Ministry of Marine and Colonies, in two successive parts, in 1877 and 1881. The title-page to the first part has been retained in this copy and bound before the second title-page, dated 1881 and bearing the final date of publication.

Illustrated with ten coloured plates by John Gerrard Keulemans, lithographed, hand-coloured and finished with gum arabic, and printed in London by Mintern Bros. "Pas dans Gay. Nissen, Illustrierten Vogelbücher, 74. Anker, Bird books, p. 69. Absent de Ronsil, Bibliographie ornithologique française. Zimmer, p. 39."

Contemporary brown half morocco with corners, smooth spine with five false raised bands, slightly faded, black calf lettering-pieces for title and author, place and date gilt at foot, marbled paper boards, orange endpapers and pastedowns. Minor rubbing.

Autograph presentation inscription by Bocage at the head of the second title-page, dated 1881: « British Ornithologists' Union, hommage de l'auteur » [British Ornithologists' Union, with the author's compliments]. Early pencil annotations to the list of plates. An attractive copy presented by the author to the British Ornithologists' Union.

The work brings together almost fifteen years of research conducted in Lisbon on the avifauna of Angola. José Vicente Barbosa du Bocage (1823-1907), Professor of Zoology at the Lisbon Polytechnic School, had undertaken the reorganisation of the zoological collections of its museum and systematically developed its holdings from the African territories under Portuguese rule. In 1905 the museum's Zoological Section was officially named after him.

Much of the material he studied reached him from Angola through José de Anchieta (1832-1897). From the 1860s onwards, Anchieta travelled through the interior and regularly dispatched birds, mammals, reptiles and other specimens to Lisbon, notably from the regions around Benguela and Caconda. Bocage identified them, described new species and progressively published his findings; between 1867 and 1882 he issued twenty-four lists devoted to the birds of Portugal's West African possessions. The Ornithologie d'Angola brought together and organised this previously dispersed body of work, much of it based on Anchieta's field collections.

The book also belongs to a specific moment in the history of Portuguese science. Its publication was made possible by João de Andrade Corvo, Professor of Botany at the Polytechnic School and later Minister of Marine and Overseas Territories, whose support Bocage expressly acknowledged in the preliminary pages. The title itself records the government's patronage. In 1877, the year in which the first part appeared, Bocage also became President of the Lisbon Geographical Society, a position he held until 1883.

John Gerrard Keulemans (1842-1912) formed another link in the chain connecting the Angolan fieldwork with the Lisbon museum. Born in the Netherlands and settled in England from 1869, he became one of the leading ornithological illustrators of his generation. His own career had begun with a collecting expedition to West Africa; in London he worked regularly with Mintern Bros, printers of the ten coloured lithographs for the Ornithologie d'Angola.

The presentation inscription on the second title-page adds a final stage to the history of this copy. Bocage presented it to the British Ornithologists' Union, founded in 1858 and associated from the following year with The Ibis, one of the principal international journals of ornithology. His work, compiled in Lisbon from collections sent from Angola and illustrated in London, was thus placed directly before the British ornithological community for which Keulemans himself worked extensively.

This copy thus preserves almost the entire course of the undertaking: the birds collected by Anchieta in Angola, studied and described by Bocage in Lisbon, portrayed by Keulemans in London, and finally the book which its author himself presented to the British Ornithologists' Union.