Figure

CHARLES REUBEN RYLEY Glossy Black-Cockatoo Calyptorhynchus lathami. Original watercolour (left) and matching hand-coloured engraving by James Fittler (right) for Shaw’s Museum Leverianum: Containing Select Specimens from the Museum of the Late Sir Ashton Lever (1792–1796). Until the nineteenth century, the printing process involved an engraver, who transcribed the artwork, and a hand-colourist. This allowed the possibility of improving the work, but tampering was often of concern to the artist. The skill of the hand-colourist also influenced the final illustration. In this case, yet another artist may have been involved: Ryley appears to have based his illustration of a raffish black-cockatoo on an earlier one by Sarah Stone. Labelled the Banksian Cockatoo (today known as the Red-tailed Black-Cockatoo Calyptorhynchus banksii), the size of the beak, crest and general plumage colour suggest that Banks’ specimen was most likely a Glossy Black-Cockatoo, a species not recognised until 1807.