Samuel Kilbourne. Blue Fish. Game Fishes of the United States.New York: Scribner & Sons, 1878-1881. $600.00

Blue Fish

Samuel Kilbourne (1836-1881) was a noted American artist best known for his paintings of landscape and fish. His paintings of fresh and salt water fish are considered to be the most beautiful works on American fishes. The Boston firm of Armstrong and Company “Artistic Lithographers, Fine Art Publishers” created prints based upon 20 of these images for Games Fishes of the United States. The work is one of the largest and most spectacular of American sporting books and is also considered to be one of the finest examples of the technique of chromolithography. The compositions focus equally on the beauty of the natural surroundings with detailed foreground and backgrounds of foliage, trees, ships, riverbanks and distant horizons, and details of the anatomy and coloration of the fish.

These prints were featured in an exhibition at the Crystal Bridges Museum of Art entitled Fish stories: Early Images of American Game Fish. 

14 x 20 ½ inches, image.
Chromolithograph.
Excellent condition.