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.

William Lewin was born in Stepney, London and in his twenties was making his living as a designer of textile patterns, but by his mid-thirties he was describing himself as a "painter". In the early or mid-1780s Lewin painted a few copies of the watercolour catalogue of the dowager Duchess of Portland's collection of birds' eggs.

He spent the last part of his life devoted to the task of publishing and illustrating The Birds of Great Britain, although he had probably been preparing drawings from the 1770s, when he first saw Tunstall's collection of stuffed birds.

His work on the eggs at the Portland collections and access to Sir Ashton Lever's museum gave him material from which to make his drawings, a task which he had anticipated would take 4 years. Ten years on, and with his health failing, he was still making his plans for the next edition of the Birds with engraved plates and, indeed, was busily arranging for the engraving. His sons Thomas and John William assisted in the painting of the birds for copies on paper and, as here, executed a few of the paintings on vellum. Both helped complete the final edition with engravings, published after his death, in 1801. The 4 copies with drawings on vellum were probably drawn up by William for presentation to his most favoured patrons.

Lewin 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...”.

Lewin differed 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.