[Abel Chapman's Sudan sketchbooks] [graphic]

Collective title devised by cataloger. Each sketchbook has a handwritten label on its front cover: [1]. Sudan ii (dated Feb. 10, 1913 inside front cover); [2]. Sudan 1913-4, vol. i ("begin Nov. 20, 1913, finish Jan. 29, 1914" inscribed inside front cover); [3]. Sudan, 1913-4, vol. ii (dated Feb. 2, 1914 inside front cover); and [4]. Sudan, 1919 (dated Febr[uar]y 1919 inside front cover). The sketchbooks were digitized as part of the Smithsonian Field Book Project. Also available online. Abel Chapman was an English big-game hunter and naturalist, particularly interested in ornithology. He traveled extensively in Portugal, Spain, Morocco, Scandinavia, South Africa and Sudan, and collected specimens of wildlife for the Natural History Museum in London. Forms part of: Russell E. Train Africana Collection (Smithsonian Institution. Libraries). Many of the sketches were used as the basis for the illustrations in: Savage Sudan: its wild tribes, big-game and bird-life / Abel Chapman. London : Gurney and Jackson, 1921. SCNHRB copy has all 4 sketchbooks housed together in a modern green morocco leather and embossed cloth-covered clamshell box with gilt-lettered spine. The individual sketchbooks are blank books with their original black cloth bindings, probably commercially-produced. SCNHRB copy has accession number Art 22 in the Cullman Library inventory list of the Russell E. Train collection. The Cullman Library has additional artwork (currently uncataloged) based on the rough versions in these sketchbooks, made by Chapman in preparation for the publication of his book Savage Sudan. SCNHRB copy has provenance markings: stamp at foot of the front paste-down endpaper in the 1913-4, v. 2 sketchbook: Aug. Walker, 118 New Bond St. NW; and printed label "HW" mounted on the front endpapers. SCNHRB copy has some brief annotations made by Chapman in the years after the sketches were produced, chiefly on the endpapers. SCNHRB copy has various items laid in, including brief handwritten notes, rough sketches, printed matter (newsclippings; letterhead for the George Nungovich Egyptian Hotels Company; stationery from the Steamers Department, Sudan Government; and a form from the Northumberland County Constabulary, Police Office). Also laid in: printed auction ticket from an unidentified source: L03407 lot 0166 28 May 2003. Elecresource Pencil sketches of wildlife and local scenery created by Abel Chapman during his travels in Sudan in 1913, 1914, and 1919. In some cases the sketches include captions describing the place and date when the subject was seen, as well as brief notes on colors, posture and other characteristic features. Various types of birds are featured (for instance: eagles; geese; ducks; cormorants; pelicans, rollers, flycatchers, ostriches, and vultures), as well as some mammals (such as baboons, elephants, warthogs, hippopotamus, leopards, and giraffes), and a few insects and fish. There are a few sketches featuring Shilluk or Nuer people and their cultural objects.