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.
2,174 prints
Cuculus Sparverioides
$185
Klapekster
$185
Hermit Thrush
$350
New-Guinea Pitta
$195
Cuculus Himalayanus
$185
Nachtegaal
$185
Chestnut-sided Warbler
$350
Hooded Pitta
$195
Pomatorhinus Erythrogenys
$185
Grauwe Klauwier
$185
Carbonated Warbler
$350
Blue-tailed Pitta
$195
Cinnyris Gouldiae
$185
Zwarte Stern
$185
Great Horned Owl
$725
Pitta Schwaneri
$195
Vinago Sphenura
$185
Goudvink
$185
Passenger Pigeon
$475
Pitta Boschii
$195
Vinago Militaris
$185
Sijs
$185
White-eyed Flycatcher
$350
Ruffed Grouse
$225
Columba Leuconota
$185
Appelvink
$185
Swamp Sparrow
$350
Artic Ruffed Grouse
$225
Lophophorus Impeyanus
$185
Brummeldiefje
$185
Rathbone Warbler
$350
Sabine’s Grouse
$225
Lophophorus Impeyanus
$185
Schildvink
$185
Ivory-billed Woodpecker
$725
Hazal Grouse
$225
Tragopan Satyrus
$185
Kwartel
$185
Red-winged Starling or Marsh Blackbird
$475
Cock of the Woods – Capercailzie
$225
Tragopan Hastingsii
$185
Geerts Kneu
$185
Republican, or Cliff Swallow
$350
Allied Cock of the Woods
$225
Tragopan Hastingsii
$185
Wintertaling (mas)
$185
Bay-breasted Warbler
$350
Dusky Grouse
$225
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.