Lophornas reginae (Spangled Coquette)

Created through lithography, the original line work was transferred onto stone and printed in monochrome before being finished by hand with watercolor pigments. This manual coloring enhances the metallic sheen of the hummingbirds’ feathers, a method typical of scientific illustration at the time, which sought both accuracy and visual appeal.

Gould, an English naturalist and prolific publisher of bird monographs, produced the plate during a period of intense interest in exotic species. Collaborators such as his wife Elizabeth Gould, Edward Lear and Henry Constantine Richter supplied many of the drawings that Gould later refined into printed plates, including this one.

The Spanged Coquette plate appears within a broader effort to document New World birds for European audiences. In the early 1840s, expanding colonial trade routes brought specimens to Britain, prompting naturalists like Gould to compile comprehensive visual records that combined scientific detail with artistic elegance.

Gould’s hummingbird illustrations, including the *Lophornas reginae* lithograph, contributed to the standardization of avian taxonomy and influenced subsequent generations of wildlife artists. The work remains a reference point for both historical ornithology and the development of color printing techniques.