Gouache of male and female mallard ducks flying over marshland, sky and clouds in the distance by Burke, Edgar - 1929

New York: The Derrydale Press, 1929. First edition. Signed lower left "Edgar Burke 1927". The drake is the original painting of the illustration for "The Mallard" section of Connett's Feathered Game from a Sporting Journal. 1 vols. Image 10 x 7 inches, matted and framed to 15-1/2 x 12-1/2 inches overall. Fine condition. First edition. Signed lower left "Edgar Burke 1927". The drake is the original painting of the illustration for "The Mallard" section of Connett's Feathered Game from a Sporting Journal. 1 vols. Image 10 x 7 inches, matted and framed to 15-1/2 x 12-1/2 inches overall. Original Gouache of Mallards by Burke for Derrydale's Feathered Game. Edgar Burke, MD (1889-1950) successfully combined the vocation of medicine (he was a member of the American College of Physicians and Surgeons) and the avocation of sport. He was an enthusiastic wildfowler and upland gunner, and expert angler and fly tyer (he designed the flies "Doctor Burke" and "Family Secret") and was interested in pigeon racing and cock fighting (it was he, in the Jersey City cock-fights of the 1930s, who sewed up the wounds of the injured birds). He was also a celebrated sporting artist, illustrating two Derrydale Press classics, Feathered Game (1929)--such as the example offered here--and Upland Game Bird Shooting in America (1930), and producing front cover vignettes for seven more, including Grouse Feathers, and De Shootinest Gent'man. He was, notes Siegel, a childhood companion and lifetime friend of Derrydale proprietor Eugene Connett--a relationship that paid large dividends for readers of the Press.

A UNIQUE AND BEAUTIFUL ORIGINAL DUCK GOUACHE FOR THE DERRYDALE PRESS CLASSIC "FEATHERED GAME" Siegel pp. 192-3 and No. 24