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Elizabeth Gould, The Woman Who Painted Australia’s Birds

The morning breeze carried the salty tang of the Tasmanian coast as Elizabeth Gould sat perched on a rocky outcrop, sketchbook balanced carefully on her knees. Before her, a pair of Blue Mountain parrots flashed their brilliant plumage against the eucalyptus leaves. Her practiced hand moved swiftly across the paper, capturing their vibrant colours and distinctive poses with delicate strokes of watercolour.

It was 1838, and Elizabeth was thousands of miles from the three young children she’d left behind in England. The decision to leave them had nearly broken her heart – she’d barely made it up the gangplank on departure day. But here, in this wild and beautiful land, she was discovering wonders beyond imagination: birds that laughed like humans, finches that glowed with rainbow hues, and wrens that danced across the morning dew.

The locals who passed by might have seen just another proper English lady with her drawing materials, but they were witnessing something extraordinary.

In those quiet moments of observation and creation, Elizabeth Gould was doing more than making pretty pictures – she was creating some of the most important scientific illustrations of the 19th century. Her artworks would introduce Australia’s extroidinary wildlife to the world and even play a role in Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution.

Today, few people know her name.

While her husband John Gould would become celebrated as “The Bird Man,” earning lasting fame for the magnificent books they created together, Elizabeth’s crucial contributions would be largely forgotten.

The story of how this middle-class girl from Ramsgate became one of the most significant wildlife artists of her era – before her untimely death at just 37 – is one of passion, determination, and unsung genius.

This is the tale of the woman who brought Australia’s birds to life on paper, even as her own story faded into history’s shadows.

The Making of an Artist

On a mild spring morning in 1829, Elizabeth Coxen stood before the altar of St James Church in Piccadilly, about to go on a journey that would transform her from a frustrated governess into one of the most significant wildlife artists of the Victorian era.

St James Church in Piccadilly
St James Church in Piccadilly

At twenty-four, she had already lived a life typical of many middle-class women in Ramsgate – learning the genteel arts of drawing, painting, and natural history as part of her education.

Elizabeth’s talents would prove far from ordinary.

The daughter of a military family, Elizabeth had found herself employed as a governess to the daughter of William Rothery, the King’s Proctor. In her only surviving letter from this period, her frustration bleeds through the careful penmanship: “wretchedly dull,” she described her days, lamenting that there was “no one in the household in whom she could confide her feelings.”

But fate had other plans.

Through her brother Charles, a taxidermist, Elizabeth met John Gould, an ambitious young man who served as curator and taxidermist at the Zoological Society of London. Their courtship would lead not only to marriage but to one of the most productive artistic partnerships of the nineteenth century.

The pivotal moment came in 1830, when a collection of exotic bird specimens arrived at the Zoological Society from the Himalayas. John, ever the entrepreneur, saw an opportunity to publish illustrated descriptions of these never-before-seen species. It was a huge project that would require hundreds of detailed, hand-coloured illustrations.

A Century of Birds from the Himalaya Mountains (1830-1832) E Gould
A Century of Birds from the Himalaya Mountains (1830-1832) E Gould

When Elizabeth asked who would create such intricate artwork, John’s response would change both their lives forever: “Why you, of course.”

The scene that followed speaks volumes about their relationship.

Elizabeth, who had never attempted scientific illustration, found herself facing a cabinet full of preserved birds, armed with nothing but her basic art training and determination. She would need to learn an entirely new printing technique – lithography – while caring for their first child, born just months into the project. Instead of shrinking from the challenge, Elizabeth picked up her brush and began to work.

What emerged was extraordinary.

Her first attempts showed promise, but as she worked with Edward Lear, the famous artist and nonsense poet, her style evolved rapidly. Where other artists of the era produced stiff, lifeless specimens, Elizabeth’s birds seemed to pulse with vitality. She captured not just their form but their essence – the alert tilt of a head, the graceful curve of a wing, the subtle play of light on feathers.

Mrs. G. is improving every day in her drawing & attitudes,” wrote the distinguished naturalist P.J. Selby to Sir William Jardine in January 1831. It was an understatement that history would prove profound.

Cockatiel Nymphicus novae-hollandiae 1842 E Gould
Working sketches: Cockatiel Nymphicus novae-hollandiae 1842 E Gould

An Artistic Partnership

In the dimly lit workshop of London’s Zoological Society, Elizabeth bent over the lithographic stone, her hands steady as she transferred her delicate drawings using a technique she was still mastering. The year was 1830, and “A Century of Birds from the Himalaya Mountains” would either launch or destroy the Goulds’ dreams of scientific publication.

Each plate required meticulous attention – one slip could ruin days of work and precious materials they could barely afford.

Elizabeth learned the complex art of lithography from Edward Lear, already famous for both his artistic work and nonsense poetry. Under his guidance, her technique evolved dramatically. “The improvement in Mrs. Gould’s work is nothing short of remarkable,” Lear wrote to a colleague. “She has developed a touch that brings these creatures to life in a way I’ve rarely seen.

Her distinctive style emerged through countless hours of patient observation and practice. Where other artists of the era produced rigid, museum-like specimens, Elizabeth’s birds seemed caught in moments of life – a parent feeding its young, a male displaying its plumage, a pair engaged in courtship. Each illustration combined scientific precision with an artist’s eye for beauty and movement.

The success of the Himalayan birds led to a flood of commissions.

Over the next decade, Elizabeth’s reputation grew as she produced hundreds of illustrations, working through pregnancies and caring for her growing family. Her workspace often featured a baby’s cradle beside her drawing table, her artistic and maternal duties intertwined in the daily rhythm of her life.

Perhaps her most significant work came in 1837, when Charles Darwin himself requested her help with illustrating the birds he had collected during his voyage on the H.M.S. Beagle. Elizabeth could not have known that her precise renderings of finch beaks – each subtle variation captured with scientific accuracy – would later help support one of the most important scientific theories in history.

I require absolute precision in these illustrations,” Darwin wrote to John Gould. “The subtle differences between specimens must be captured exactly.” Elizabeth’s response was fifty plates of such accuracy that they continue to serve as reference materials for modern scientists.

Her illustrations of the Galapagos finches would become instrumental in demonstrating the kind of small variations that Darwin’s theory of natural selection would later explain.

The magnitude of Elizabeth’s output during this period is staggering. Between 1830 and 1841, she would produce over 650 hand-coloured lithographic plates, all while raising a family that would eventually include eight children.

Each plate required multiple stages: initial sketches, transfer to stone, printing supervision, and often hand-colouring guidance for the team of artists who would complete the final prints.

If you look closely at her work, you can see how she developed techniques to capture the iridescence of feathers, the texture of down, the glint in a bird’s eye. These weren’t just scientific illustrations – they were works of art that happened to serve science.

The Australian Adventure

On May 16, 1838, Elizabeth Gould stood at the rail of the barque Parsee, watching the English coastline fade into mist. In her pocket was a letter from her mother promising to care for her three youngest children. Only her eldest son, John Henry, stood beside her on deck, while her husband John paced impatiently, already dreaming of Australia’s undocumented birds.

The five-month voyage became Elizabeth’s floating studio. Each morning found her on deck, sketching materials at hand, documenting pelagic birds with unprecedented accuracy. Her scientific eye noted precise positions – latitude, longitude, and date accompanying each illustration of Blue Petrels and Cape Petrels in flight.

Their arrival in Hobart in September 1838 opened a new chapter. “Walked on the race course before breakfast,” she wrote, “the air balmy and very delightful, great numbers of the blue mountain parrots were making their morning meal on a large kind of the Eucalypti – two of the beautiful Nankeen night herons passed over our heads – and we heard the curious note of the caul bird or bald-headed friar.” Her letters home vibrated with such discoveries, even as she carried the weight of separation from her children.

While John and his collector John Gilbert mounted expeditions into the bush, Elizabeth found unexpected freedom in being left behind. Based first at Government House in Hobart as a guest of Lady Jane Franklin, she had something most scientific illustrators of her era lacked – the opportunity to observe birds in their natural habitat rather than working from preserved specimens.

The Australian environment challenged everything I knew about colour and light,” she wrote to her mother. “How does one capture the shimmer of a fairy wren’s plumage, or the way morning light plays on a cockatoo’s crest?” Her solution was revolutionary – developing new techniques with layered watercolors to achieve effects never before seen in scientific illustration.

Life in Tasmania brought both challenges and triumphs. She gave birth to her sixth child, Franklin Tasman Gould, yet maintained her rigorous artistic schedule. Her legacy from this period goes beyond mere illustrations – she documented entire ecosystems, from the native plants the birds fed on to their nesting habits and calls, creating a comprehensive record of Australia’s avian life.

After ten months in Tasmania, the Goulds ventured to mainland Australia, where Elizabeth would make her most significant contributions to “The Birds of Australia.” But that would be another chapter in her remarkable story.

Experiments with Paint E Gould
Experiments with Paint E Gould

From Colony to Tragedy

After ten months in Tasmania, the Goulds ventured to mainland Australia, arriving in Sydney in September 1839. Elizabeth found herself briefly thrust into colonial society, with invitations to Government House balls – though her true passion lay elsewhere. Her brother Stephen’s gentle teasing about her reluctance to socialise hints at her character: “if John went off the hooks I should soon pick up a capital match.

It was at her brother’s homestead in Yarrundi that Elizabeth found her most productive period. Breaking with convention, she even joined John on a camping expedition in the Hunter Valley – an adventure that prompted Lady Jane Franklin to write with astonishment: “I almost envy you to hear of you living in tents on the Hunter and what do you do next?

Her diary from Yarrundi captures both her dedication and wonder: “Drew all day, the air filled with the calls of birds I never dreamed existed. The branches above my drawing table teem with fairy wrens, their blue plumage catching the morning light in ways I struggle to capture with my paints.

After four months of intensive work, the Goulds returned to Sydney in February 1840. With their departure from Australia looming, Elizabeth worked feverishly to complete as many studies as possible.

In April, they boarded their homebound ship carrying a precious cargo: hundreds of sketches and specimens, several live birds, and their Australian-born son Franklin, named for their Tasmanian hosts.

Their return to England in August 1840 brought both joy and renewed purpose. Elizabeth immediately threw herself into preparing “The Birds of Australia” for publication, transforming her field sketches into finished plates. The first installments, published in December 1840, met with immediate acclaim.

But fate would cut short this moment of triumph.

In August 1841, days after giving birth to her eighth child, Sarah, Elizabeth fell ill with puerperal fever. Despite receiving the best medical care available, she died on August 15, 1841, at just 37 years old. Her last known work – an unfinished plate of an Australian finch – remained on her drawing table.

Elizabeth had completed 84 plates for “The Birds of Australia” and left behind numerous sketches that would guide the project’s completion. John Gould, devastated by the loss of both wife and artistic partner, would later name one of Australia’s most beautiful birds in her honor – the Gouldian Finch (Chloebia gouldiae). In its dedication, he wrote of her years of labor “with her pencil,” a fitting tribute to an artist who had helped reveal Australia’s natural wonders to the world.

Rediscovering Elizabeth. Artist, Wife, or Both?

The rediscovery of Elizabeth Gould’s letters in 1938 sparked a debate that continues today:

was she an exploited talent or half of a genuinely collaborative partnership? The truth, like Elizabeth herself, proves more complex than either narrative suggests.

“I have taken the opportunity of forwarding 3 Drawings,” John wrote to naturalist William Jardine in 1830, “which are the only ones I have been able to get done for you owing to Mrs. Gould being very much indisposed.” The letter reveals both Elizabeth’s importance to their enterprise and John’s early reliance on her skills – he charged £1.16.0 for her drawings, a significant sum that contributed to their household income.

Questions linger about credit and control. While her first publication, “A Century of Birds from the Himalaya Mountains,” bore her signature – “Drawn from Nature and on Stone by E. Gould” – subsequent works shared the attribution “J & E Gould.” Art historian Christine Jackson notes that John’s later claim to have provided the original sketches for all their publications is contradicted by evidence: “There are no Gould-like rough sketches known for this work.”

Their relationship particularly intrigues scholars examining Victorian scientific partnerships. Elizabeth found in John both escape and opportunity. She traded an unfulfilling position as a governess for a role that, while demanding, allowed her artistic talents to flourish. Her letters suggest genuine affection for John, even as they reveal the strain of balancing her artistic work with motherhood and society’s expectations.

Edward Lear, who taught Elizabeth lithography, offered perhaps the most pointed assessment after John’s death in 1881: “He owed everything to his excellent wife, and to myself, without whose help in drawing he had done nothing.” This too may be an oversimplification.

The Goulds’ partnership produced works whose scientific and artistic value neither might have achieved alone.

The physical evidence tells its own story. The Ralph Ellis Collection at Kansas University contains Elizabeth’s original sketches, some bearing John’s heavy-handed corrections around eyes or tails.

Rather than suggesting exploitation, these marks hint at a working relationship where both partners contributed their expertise – her artistic skill complementing his scientific knowledge.

More controversial is their financial arrangement. While John charged substantial sums for Elizabeth’s work, no records show her receiving separate payment. However, this was typical of the era, when married women’s earnings legally belonged to their husbands. The Goulds’ comfortable lifestyle and their children’s education suggest the family shared in the enterprise’s success.

An Enduring Influence

Elizabeth Gould’s story resonates far beyond the bounds of natural history illustration. She died never knowing the full impact of her work – how her precise renderings of Darwin’s finches would help shape our understanding of evolution, or how her paintings of the New Zealand Huia and Norfolk Island Kaka would become precious records of species now lost to time.

She couldn’t have imagined that her artworks would continue to inspire generations of wildlife artists and naturalists, who still marvel at her ability to capture not just the form, but the very essence of her subjects.

The precise beauty of Elizabeth Gould’s hand haunts the volumes of ‘The Birds of Australia.’ In every delicate feather and lifelike pose, we can still see the dedication of an artist who helped the world discover the unique wildlife of Australia, even as her own name faded into history’s shadows.

Perhaps her greatest legacy lies not in the birds she painted, but in the doors she opened.

In an era when women’s contributions to science were rarely acknowledged, Elizabeth Gould proved that art and science could speak in the same voice – and that voice could be female. She exemplifies the often-overlooked women who shaped our understanding of the natural world, working diligently in the margins of history to advance human knowledge.

It’s time to remember Elizabeth Gould not just as John Gould’s wife, but as a pioneering artist and scientist in her own right – a woman who brought Australia’s birds to life on paper and, in doing so, created a lasting legacy that continues to enrich our understanding of the natural world.

In her work, scientific precision and artistic beauty speak to us still, reminding us that some contributions to human knowledge transcend their time, waiting to be rediscovered and celebrated anew.

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