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
Tangara à Plastron
$165
Ruffed Grouse
$725
Elegant Pitta
$195
Garrulus Striatus
$185
Le Pignancoin
$195
Roodborstje
$185
Der grosse indianische Kranich
$165
Tangara à Tête bleue
$165
Orchard Oriole
$475
Irene Pitta
$195
Garrulus Bispecularis
$185
Le Tocard
$195
Scholver
$185
Der rothbürstige. langeschwänzte Finck
$165
Cotinga Ouette
$165
Cedar Waxwing
$350
Great Pitta
$195
Garrulus Lanceolatus
$185
Le Toco
$195
Nest van de Scholver
$185
Der schwarze Eisvogel
$165
Tachyphône Archevêque
$165
Summer Red Bird
$350
Blue Pitta
$195
Garrulus Lanceolatus
$185
Le grand Toucan à ventre rouge
$195
Grote Karrekiet
$185
Der schwarze und weisse chinesische Fasan mit seiner Henne
$165
Fringille Paroare
$165
Willow Flycatcher
$350
Graceful Pitta
$195
Pica Erythrorhyncha
$185
Le petit Toucan à ventre rouge
$195
Rietvink
$185
Die Brasilische Elster Toucan
$165
Tersine Bleue
$165
Barred Owl
$725
Purple Pitta
$195
Pica Vagabunda
$185
L’Aracari Koulik mâle de la Guyane
$195
Kleine Karrekiet
$185
Die Jungfer von Numidien
$165
Pie à Ventre rouge
$165
Throated Hummingbird
$475
Red-Breasted Pitta
$195
Pica Senensis
$185
L’Aracari à ceinture rouge
$195
Karrekietje
$185
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.