Background:

These beautiful hand-colored Bird Egg prints are from the first edition of British Oology and feature drawings by the British ornithologist William Hewitson.  A talented natural history artist, Hewitson also prepared the lithograph plates used to produce the prints, which were then hand colored.  Issued in supplements between 1831 and 1842, the exquisite illustrations feature eggs of British birds "drawn and coloured from nature".