John Gerrard Keulemans | |
---|---|
J. G. Keulemans
|
|
Born |
Rotterdam |
8 June 1842
Died | 29 March 1912 Ilford |
(aged 69)
Nationality | Dutch |
Known for | Natural history illustration |
Johannes Gerardus Keulemans (J. G. Keulemans) (8 June 1842 – 29 March 1912) was a Dutch bird illustrator. For most of his life he lived and worked in England, illustrating a large number of the best-known ornithology books of the nineteenth century.
Keulemans was born in Rotterdam. As a young man he collected animal specimens for museums such as the Natural History Museum in Leiden, whose director, Hermann Schlegel, encouraged Keulemans and sent him on the 1864 expedition to West Africa. In 1869, he was persuaded by Richard Bowdler Sharpe to illustrate his Monograph of the Alcedinidae, or Family of Kingfishers (1868-1871) and to move to England, where he lived for the rest of his life. He was married twice, and had eight children by his first wife and seven children by his second wife. Only nine of his children reached adulthood. He also wrote topics on spirituality, and claimed he had a premonition at the moment of death of one of his sons. He died in Ilford, Essex (now part of Greater London) and is buried in Buckingham Road cemetery, Ilford, in an unmarked grave.
Keulemans regularly provided illustrations for The Ibis and The Proceedings of the Zoological Society. He illustrated many important bird books, including Buller's A History of the Birds of New Zealand (1873, 1888), William Vincent Legge's History of the Birds of Ceylon (1880), Daniel Giraud Elliot's Monograph of the Bucerotidae (hornbills) (1887–1892), Henry Seebohm's Monograph of the Turdidae (thrushes) (1902), Osbert Salvin's Biologia Centrali-Americana (1879–1904), Edgar Leopold Layard's Birds of South Africa (1887) and Henry Eeles Dresser's History of the Birds of Europe (1871–1896), and a single illustration in The Journal of the Linnean Society.