Ashmolean The Elements of Drawing, John Ruskin’s teaching collection at Oxford

The bird, identified by Le Vaillant as a black-fronted 'barbu', stands on a thin, bare branch.

The print was taken from the small-paper edition of Le Vaillant's illustrated two-volume work on birds of paradise and other tropical birds; it is pl. 28 in vol. II, immediately preceding the accompanying text on p. 65. James Dearden has been unable to find anything other than Ruskin's published references to this book (personal communication, 20 December 2003). In his catalogue entry for the prints, Ruskin wrote that he did not cut up his 'fine-paper copy', and rather used the small-paper edition, because he intended the former 'to be in the student's library'.

The print was one of a set included in the second section of the ninth cabinet of the Rudimentary Series which, like the Goulds in cabinet eight, were not catalogued infividually: the contents of the cabinet are simply referred to as examples from 'Le Vaillant's work on the Birds of Paradise'. The reasons for this appear in an inscription on no. 223 (in fact a plate a from Nozeman's "Nederlandsche Vogelen"): 'All these plates are only put in temporarily: and un-named; because every bird has half a dozen names, now, and I can't get my catalogue printed, safely, yet, but for drawing practice - they will serve, just now. It is of no use arranging till the frames are all filled'. The numbers allocated to the individual plates in the present catalogue are those inscribed upon them, which presumably reflect their original arrangements in the cabinet.

The second section of the ninth cabinet included 'Exercises in balanced colour and shade, with perfect form'. Ruskin stated that the prints would 'answer my immediate purpose, of giving exercises in colour, with extreme precision of terminal line'. He thought highly of Le Vaillant's work, describing it as 'Far beyond rivalship [...] its plates, exquisitely engraved, and coloured with unwearying care by hand, are insuperable in plume-texture, hue, and action, - spoiled in effect, unhappily, by the vulgar boughs for sustentation' (Love's Meinie, § 87 = XXV.77-79). Indeed, Ruskin explained in his catalogue that these examples from the smaller edition were 'not justly representative of Le Vaillant's book'.

It also seems likely that Ruskin included these plates for the same reason as he included the prints from Gould's "British Birds" (nos 195-200 & 225), which he intended to further his students' relationship with birds and their study: 'I believe even these few examples will be greatly useful in exciting the interest of the younger students in ornithology, and especially in the living birds' (Rudimentary Series catalogues, entry for cabinet eight, section two); such study would be morally improving (The Eagle's Nest, §§ 173-199 = XXII.241-244).