Redfish, Branded Drum, or Bass of the South

This beautiful chromolithograph is from the work Game Fishes of the United States by Samuel A. Kilbourne. It was published by Scribners in New York in 1879.

Samuel A. Kilbourne, a native of Bridgetown, Maine, was an accomplished painter of natural history subjects when he decided, in 1858, to specialize in painting fish. He was extremely successful and, as the plates in this work testify, very proficient in his work. The Game Fishes… was his greatest accomplishment, and has been described as having “the most beautiful fish plates published in this country.” (Bennett)

A reviewer writing in The Century magazine in 1882 wrote of Kilbourne’s depictions: “Mr. Kilbourne has succeeded in a difficult task. He has succeeded in uniting in his delineation the accuracy in details of form and colouring required by the naturalist, with that freedom of style, delicacy of handling, and naturalness of surroundings demanded by the artist.”

The images are portraits in natural habitats mounted on card and suitable for framing, as they are both accurate and aesthetically appealing.