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
Die gehaubte Ente
$165
Daonis Spize
$165
Selby’s Flycatcher
$350
Golden Bird of Paradise
$225
Alcedo Guttatus
$185
Perruche Ara, à gorge variée
$195
Leeuwerik
$185
Frontispice avec 11 vignettes
$235
Die gehaubte Meise
$165
Euphône Galot
$165
Brown Lark
$350
King Bird of Paradise
$225
Muscicapa Melanops
$185
Perruche Ara, a bandeau rouge
$195
Kemphaan
$185
Le Groënlandais, faucon blanc mué
$235
Die gelbbrüstige Drossel
$165
Euphône Téité
$165
Bird of Washington
$725
Long tailed Paradigalla
$225
Phaenecornis Princeps
$185
Perruche Ara, Guarouba mâle
$195
Huiszwaluw
$185
Le Groënlandais, faucon blanc mué (b)
$235
Die grosse Lerche
$165
Euphône à Bandeau
$165
Baltimore Oriole
$475
Wallaces Standardwing
$225
Phaenicornis Brevirostris
$185
Perruche Ara, Guarouba femelle
$195
Boerenzwaluw
$185
Le faucon hagard
$235
Die purpurfarbe Kernbeisser
$165
Euphône à Diadême
$165
Snow Bird
$350
Great Sickle-bill bird
$225
Phaenicornis Peregrina
$185
Perruche Ara, Guarouba dans son jeune âge
$195
Oeverzwaluw
$185
Le gerfaut sors
$235
Die purpurfarbe Schwalbe
$165
Euphône à Tête bleue
$165
Prairie Warbler
$350
Elliot’s Sicklebill
$225
Hypsipetes Psariodes
$185
Perruche Emeraude
$195
Gierzwaluw
$185
Le gerfaut sors
$235
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.