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
Worm-eating Warbler
$350
Nepal Pitta
$195
Parus Xanthogenys – Parus Monticolus
$185
La Perruche à front rouge
$195
Roerdomp
$185
Der brasilische Fasan
$165
Procné Araponga
$165
Yellow Warbler
$350
Blue-Winged Pitta
$195
Parus Erythrocephalus – Parus Melanolophus
$185
La Perruche couronnée d’or
$195
Nest van de Roerdomp
$185
Der chinesische schwarze Staar
$165
Psittacule Foui-Eté
$165
Stanley Hawk
$725
Angola Pitta
$195
Fringilla Rodopepla – Fringilla Rodochroa
$185
La Perrouche Sincialo, le mâle
$195
Huismus
$185
Der geflechte Falck
$165
Ramphocèle Scarlatte
$165
Golden-winged Woodpecker
$475
Bengal Pitta
$195
Pyrrhula Erythrocephala
$185
La Perruche soufre
$195
Ringmus
$185
Der gekrönte afrikanische Kranich
$165
Tangara Diable-enchumé
$165
Kentucky Warbler
$350
Vigors Pitta
$195
Carduelis Caniceps – Carduelis Spinoides
$185
La Perruche écarlate
$195
Slootmus
$185
Der grose Eisvogel vom Flus Gambia
$165
Tangara Passe-Vert
$165
Crested Titmouse
$350
Fairy Pitta
$195
Lamprotornis Spilopterus
$185
La Perruche à collier noir
$195
Paapje
$185
Der grosse Kranich aus der Hudsonsbay
$165
Tangara Tricolor
$165
American Redstart
$350
Noisy Pitta
$195
Nucifraga Hemispila
$185
Le Cocan à collier jaune
$195
Baardmannetje
$185
Der grosse gefleckte Guckguck
$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.