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
Der Geijerkönig
$165
Oiseau Mouche à Collier
$165
Solitary Vireo
$350
Yellow-breasted Bower-bird
$225
Pitta Brachyura
$185
La Perruche à front jaune ou l’Aputé-Juba, le mâle
$195
Nest van de Meerkoet
$185
L’autour hagard
$235
Der Minor oder Mino
$165
Oiseau Mouche à deux Huppes
$165
Rufous-sided Towhee
$350
Green Catbird
$225
Cinclus Pallasii
$185
La Perruche à front jaune ou l’Aputé-Juba, la femelle
$195
Uil op nest
$185
L’émérillon hagard
$235
Der Touraco
$165
Pardalote Couronné
$165
Pine Warbler
$350
White-eared Catbird
$225
Phoenicura Rubeculoides – Phoenicura Coeruleocephala
$185
Première variété de la Perruche à front jaune
$195
Uil (Mas)
$185
L’émérillon hagard, le tiercelet sors et hagard d’émérillon
$235
Der Uhu
$165
Perruche à Gorge variée
$165
White-headed Eagle
$725
Vogelkop Bowerbird
$225
Phoenicura Frontalis – Phoenicura Leucocephala
$185
Seconde variété de la Perruche à front jaune
$195
Kluut
$185
L’épervier sors et le mouchet hagard
$235
Der americanische Eisvogel
$165
Perruche-Guïaruba
$165
Black-billed Cuckoo
$475
Caerulean Pitta (Young)
$195
Enicurus Maculatus
$185
La Perruche Souris
$195
Waterhoentje op nest
$185
Der americanische Pelican
$165
Pie Acahé
$165
American Goldfinch
$350
Caerulean Pitta
$195
Enicurus Scouleri
$185
La Perruche à double collier
$195
Groenling
$185
Der arabische Trapp
$165
Platyrhynque Couronné
$165
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.