Trout

Samuel A. Kilbourne built a career on his representations of fish—much the same way John James Audubon did with birds. He trained as a landscape painter, but in the late 1850s, he turned his attention almost exclusively to fish, rendered for scientific and sporting enthusiasts.  This image of a leaping brook trout is very similar to one he created for the deluxe book Game Fishes of the United States published by Charles Scribner’s Sons in 1879. The portfolio contained twenty chromolithographs from Kilbourne’s original watercolors. The prints were accompanied by text written by George Browne Goode, the head of the research programs of the U.S. Fish Commission and a respected ichthyologist.