Elizabeth Gould

Elizabeth Gould, née Coxen (1804—1841), was a British artist and illustrator at the forefront of the natural history movement. Elizabeth traveled and worked alongside her husband, naturalist and author John Gould. She produced illustrations and lithographs for ornithological works, including plates in Darwin's The Zoology of the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle and the Goulds' seminal work The Birds of Australia. In total, Elizabeth is accredited to at least 650 works. Life and artistic career Elizabeth was born on 18 July 1804 in Ramsgate, England to a military family. Little is known of her early life, however it is likely that Elizabeth underwent training in drawing and botany from a young age. In Victorian England, botany and natural history were part of the education of girls in middle-class English families. As Ann Moyal stated, "Cultivated women drew, walked, observed, collected specimens, arranged and painted." After this, at twenty-two, Elizabeth was employed as a governess, and lived in James Street, London. It is known that she met John Gould through her brother, Charles Coxen, who was also an taxidermist. She married John Gould in January 1829, both 24 years old. Elizabeth began her professional work-life by producing ornithological drawings intended to supplement John's ornithological writing in letters to colleagues. Her first published work was in 1832 with A Century of Birds from the Himalaya Mountains. With lack of a publisher, the Goulds decided to publish it themselves. In the early days of the couple's relationship/partnership, Elizabeth provided an income for her family through selling her drawings. John encouraged her to learn lithography and asked his collaborator Edward Lear to teach her. The extent of Lear's direct influence on the artist is uncertain, but they moved in a circle of artists and natural historians working on similar publications. Elizabeth's work entailed making designs, compositions, and detailed observations of depictions of exotic birds. This was so that the works could then be made into lithographic reproductions. In addition to this, Elizabeth also made watercolor paintings accompanied with color keys for colorists to copy.