RIDGWAY, Robert

Color Standards and Color Nomenclature

Washington, D.C., The Author (and printed by A.B. Hoen & Company, Baltimore), 1912.

Octavo, [iv], iv, 44 pages plus an additional colour-pictorial title leaf and 53 leaves (all printed rectos only, with a tissue-guard) containing a total of 1115 mounted colour samples (with 6 comparison samples - 3 white and 3 black - at the top and bottom of each page), and a tipped-in explanatory note (at plate XXII).

Dark green cloth (lettered in gilt on the spine and front cover) lightly marked and flecked; bottom corners and the ends of the spine a little bumped; edges lightly foxed; tissue-guards a little browned; an excellent copy (internally fine).

An extraordinary work, and as the preface states, 'after more than twenty years of sporadic effort it has at last been completed.... The reproduction of the plates has been a difficult matter, involving not only expensive experimentation, but more than three years of unremitting labor. Vastly different from the ordinary lines of commercial color work, the correct copying of each one of the 1115 colors of the original plates developed many perplexing and often discouraging problems, which were finally solved through Mr. A.B. Hoen's expert knowledge of chemistry and pigments'.

Not surprisingly, page 44 contains a printed note headed 'CAUTION!!! Do not expose these plates to the light for a longer time than is necessary'. The short tipped-in note reads: 'Explanation of plates XXII and XXIV. Reference to these plates was unfortunately overlooked when the text was going to press. These plates are simply extras. They were made at an early stage in the preparation of the work and discarded; but were finally inserted, merely to add to the number of colors represented'.

Provenance: Captain Samuel Albert White (1870-1954), South Australian ornithologist and conservationist, with his ink ownership signature (December 1919) on the front free endpaper. The 'Australian Dictionary of Biography' records that 'His most arduous and important work as a naturalist occurred when he collaborated with Gregory Mathews on "The Birds of Australia" (London, 1910-27). To this end, White mounted major collecting expeditions, often accompanied by his wife. He travelled with camels to Alice Springs and beyond (1913), with a government team to the Musgrave and Everard ranges (1914), and with the South Australian Museum expedition to Cooper Creek (1916); he also went to the Nullarbor Plains (1917-18), with Sir Edgeworth David and Professor Walter Howchin to the Finke River (1921), and in 1922 led the great adventure from Adelaide to Darwin and back, using three Dort motor cars supplied and serviced by Adelaide mechanics Cyril and Murray Aunger.

White's outstanding achievement lay in completing an ornithological survey of the whole of South Australia and much of the Northern Territory'. There is little wonder that White's library included a copy of this stunning work.