Eleazar Albin

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"Albin's Macaw", a Jamaican parrot only known from this 1740 painting by Eleazar Albin

Privet Hawk Moths and Callajoppa Exaltatoria by Eleazar Albin, 1720.

Eleazar Albin (fl. 1690 - c.1742)^[1] was an English naturalist and watercolourist illustrator who wrote and illustrated a number of books including A Natural History of English Insects (1720), A Natural History of Birds (1731–38) and The Natural History of Spiders and other Curious Insects (1736). He has been described as one of the "great entomological book illustrators of the 18th century".^[1]

Nothing is known of his early life, though he may have been German-born and claimed to have been in Jamaica in 1701. In 1708 he is known to have been married and living in Piccadilly, London. According to autobiographical details in A Natural History of English Insects, Albin taught watercolour painting before being instructed in natural history by silk weaver and naturalist Joseph Dandridge.

In his work on birds he describes the wood-crow from a stuffed especimen, being probably the last description of this bird made while the species was, probably, still extant.^[2]

Works

W. Derham & E. Albin. A natural history of English insects. Illustrated with a hundred copper plates, curiously engraven from the life: and (for those who desire it) exactly coloured by the author (London, Innys, 1729).
W. Derham & E. Albin. A natural history of birds A natural history of birds etc. (3 vols. London, 1731-1738).
E. Albin. A natural history of spiders, and other curious insects (London, Tilly, 1736).
E. Albin. A Natural History of English Songbirds (1737). With coloured plates.
R. North & E. Albin. The History of Esculent Fish" (1794).

References

↑ 1.0 1.1 Michael A. Salmon, Peter Marren, Basil Harley. The Aurelian Legacy (University of California Press, 2000) pp. 109-110.
↑ Last records of Northern Bald Ibis in Europe

Albin, Eleazar (1731–1738): A natural history of the birds (3 volumes). William Innys, London. Digitized version of vol. 1 Digitized version of vol. 3
Osborne, Peter (2004): "Albin, Eleazar (d. 1742?)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press. accessed 23 July 2007.

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: "Albin, Eleazar". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900. Check date values in: |date= (help)

External links

A Natural History of English Insects (Digitised at GDZ Göttingen).

Authority control	VIAF: 347904 ISNI: 0000 0001 1850 0300

Persondata
Name	Albin, Eleazar
Alternative names
Short description	Naturalist, illustrator
Date of birth	1680
Place of birth
Date of death	1742
Place of death

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