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
Kleine Ente mit purpurfarben Kop
$165
Guit guit aux ailes variées
$165
Northern Parula
$350
D’Albertis Bird of Paradise
$225
Lanius Erythropterus
$185
Perruche à rose (mâle)
$195
Dagslaap
$185
Le lanier hagard
$235
Das Kauben Kollibritchen
$165
Héliophile Taunay
$165
Great-footed Hawk
$725
Twelve-wire Paradise Bird
$225
Collurio Hardwickii Erythronotus
$185
Le Jeune âge de la Perruche à collier rose (mâle)
$195
Grote Bonte Specht
$185
Le sacre hagard
$235
Das blaue Baumläuferlein
$165
Jacamar Doré
$165
Carolina Turtle Dove
$475
Magnificent Riflebird
$225
Turdus Erythrogaster
$185
Perruche à tête bleue (mâle)
$195
Groene Specht
$185
Le tiercelet hagard de faucon d’Islande
$235
Das grüne Kolibritchen mit langen Schwansz
$165
Manakin Militaire
$165
Bewick’s Wren
$350
Prince Albert’s Rifle Bird
$225
Turdus Poecilopterus
$185
Perruche à tête bleue
$195
Pimpelmees
$185
Le tiercelet hagard de faucon d’Islande
$235
Das grüne Kolibritchen mit schwartzem Bauch
$165
Manakin Tijé
$165
Louisiana Waterthrush
$350
Paradise Riflebird
$225
Cinclosoma Ocellatum
$185
Perruche à tête bleue
$195
Rietmees
$185
Le tiercelet hagard de gerfaut
$235
Das langeschwänzte Kolibritchen mit schwarzer Platte
$165
Manakin aux longues Pennes
$165
Blue-winged Warbler
$350
Victorias Riflebird
$225
Cinclosoma Variegatum
$185
Surnommée L’Arlequine
$195
Staartmees
$185
Le tiercelet hagard de gerfaut
$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.