Red-Necked Nightjar (Caprimulgus Ruficollis)

John Gould produced A Century of Birds from the Himalayan Mountains (1831) and rapidly followed it with The Birds of Europe (1832–1837), the series from which this plate derives. Working in collaboration with his wife Elizabeth, who executed many of the finished lithographs from his sketches before her death in 1841, Gould brought the conventions of natural history illustration to a level of artistic ambition that rivaled the finest decorative prints of the Victorian era. The nightjar plates in Birds of Europe were among the more technically demanding subjects in the series; the cryptic, bark-mimicking plumage of Caprimulgus species required the lithographer to convey fine tonal gradation across an intricate pattern without losing structural clarity. Gould's work belongs squarely within the tradition of academic natural history illustration that stretches from Mark Catesby through Audubon, yet his folio productions were distinguished by their commercial ambition and the high quality of their color printing, which was executed by the London firm of Hullmandel and Walton. The plates circulated widely among European naturalists and aristocratic subscribers, and original bound copies now command significant sums at auction.