ABOUT THE PUBLICATION / EDITOR / ARTIST

William LEWIN  (1747–1795)

William Lewin was a London born illustrator turned natural history artist. The first edition of his Birds of Great Britain, published in 1789, was a remarkable undertaking as it contained 323 original watercolor illustrations (271 birds, 52 eggs). Sixty copies were produced totaling nearly twenty thousand individual pictures. It is considered “the most amazing, enduring, and endearing one-man feat” in the entire field of English ornithology and is considered to be “the rarest of all English bird books”.

According to Swainson, Lewin was “the best zoological painter, and one of the most practical naturalists of his day”. He was patronised by the Dutchess of Portland and various eminent men of his day.

Not surprisingly, the demand for Lewin’s fine work and the limits imposed by his method led him in 1793 to begin a second edition of etched plates, allowing for relatively more copies to be published. Lewin, who was reaching the end of his life, was joined in this project by his three talented sons, Thomas, Thomas William, and John William. It was published in parts from 1794 to 1801. The hand-coloring was carried out “under his immediate direction”.

Very little is known of the life of Lewin except that he was a fellow of the Linnean Society in 1791, and lived in the village of Darenth in Kent. It is believed that he died at the end of 1795; certainly the Linnean Society records for 1797 refer to him as “the late...” Mr. Lewin separated himself from his contemporaries in one important way — in that he was involved in the entire process — not only did he paint the various birds, but he also performed the actual engraving of the plates.