This richly coloured laughingthrush was previously illustrated by Elizabeth Gould in Gould's Icones Avium, published in August 1837, some thirty-five years earlier. Icones Avium, 1837-1838, was a project intended to contain a miscellany of new species as they were discovered, but it was abandoned by Gould after only two parts and eighteen plates were issued. It is now one of the rarest of all Gould's works. Richter uses the same composition format as in Elizabeth Gould's illustration, but the birds are in slightly different positions, the plant is more robustly drawn, and there is no insect. In both pictures the thrushes are placed to show to advantage the bright crimson plumage on the wing and under the tail.
The birds are depicted lifesize.
J. Gould, Icones Avium, 1837, part 1, pl.3 Ianthocincla phoenicea
DISTRIBUTION: Southern and southeastern Asia: northeastern India, Burma, southwestern China, northern Laos, northern Vietnam, northwestern Thailand.
The subspecies Liocichla phoenicea phoenicea of southern Asia is illustrated