Bird prints
Bird plates by eight naturalists, from Audubon’s life-size The Birds of America to Gould’s hummingbirds, Elliot’s pheasants and Levaillant’s parrots, first published between the 1740s and the 1880s. Each print is a facsimile giclée made from the originals, at the size of the original sheet, in a numbered edition of 250.
Hoppe
$185
Steenuil
$185
Kievit
$185
Blauwe Kwak
$185
De Ekster
$185
Titlepage Nederlandsche Vogelen
$185
De Gaai
$185
Notenkraker
$185
Ringduif
$185
Nest en Ei Ringduif
$185
Tortel
$185
Blauwduif
$185
Kiekendief
$185
Nest en Ei Kiekendief
$185
Merel
$185
Wielewaal
$185
Koperwiek
$185
Lijster
$185
Leeuwerik
$185
Kemphaan
$185
Huiszwaluw
$185
Boerenzwaluw
$185
Oeverzwaluw
$185
Gierzwaluw
$185
Dagslaap
$185
Grote Bonte Specht
$185
Groene Specht
$185
Pimpelmees
$185
Rietmees
$185
Staartmees
$185
Scholekster
$185
Grutto
$185
Houtpitoortje
$185
Nest van het Houtpitoortje
$185
Boomkruiper
$185
Meerkoet
$185
Nest van de Meerkoet
$185
Uil op nest
$185
Uil (Mas)
$185
Kluut
$185
Waterhoentje op nest
$185
Groenling
$185
Roerdomp
$185
Nest van de Roerdomp
$185
Huismus
$185
Ringmus
$185
Slootmus
$185
Paapje
$185
About bird prints
Our bird plates cover more than a century of printmaking, and the technique changes with the period. The oldest are copper engravings: Johann Michael Seligmann’s German versions of the birds of Mark Catesby and George Edwards, published in Nuremberg from 1749 (one of them shows a dodo beside a guinea pig), and Cornelius Nozeman’s Nederlandsche Vogelen, begun in 1770. Between 1801 and 1806 Jacques Barraband’s paintings of parrots and toucans for François Levaillant were engraved in stipple.
The largest sheets are Audubon’s: Robert Havell engraved and aquatinted The Birds of America in London between 1827 and 1838, opening with the Wild Turkey. Most of the other books are lithographs, among them those of John Gould, who worked with a team of artists, and the monographs of Daniel Giraud Elliot, drawn by Joseph Wolf, Joseph Smit and John Gerrard Keulemans. What is The Birds of America? tells how Audubon’s book was made.