The Grayling. Samuel A. Kilbourne (d. 1881). From Game Fishes of the United States. Boston: Armstrong and Co, 1878-1881. Chromolithograph. 14 x 20 1/2 inches sheet. When the noted artist Samuel Kilbourne died in May of 1881, he had just completed a series of illustrations for his book, Game Fishes of the United States. This work gave Kilbourne the opportunity to combine his two most notable artistic talents, landscape painting and fish painting, and his masterful combination resulted in a series of spectacular images. Each illustration depicts a fish either in the water eating, fighting a fisherman’s line, or drawn up on a bank by the waterside. The fish are amazingly vivid, their shimmering colors and delicate scales almost tangible to the viewer. Kilbourne conveyed perfectly the drama of the sport, as well as the beauty of the natural surroundings. His landscapes are beautifully detailed with foreground foliage, and delicately rendered backgrounds of trees or sailboats.