Hummingbird prints
Hummingbirds from John Gould’s Family of Hummingbirds (1849–1861), in which most plates show two or three birds among plants, at least one of them in flight. A few come from John James Audubon’s The Birds of America and Jean Théodore Descourtilz’s birds of Brazil. Every print is a facsimile giclée at the size of the original sheet, limited to 250.
Villavicencio’s Sabrewing
$185
Broad-shafted Sabrewing
$185
Sombre Sabrewing
$185
Fawn-breasted Sabrewing
$185
Rufous-breasted Sabrewing (1)
$185
Cuvier’s Sabrewing
$185
Owen’s Sabrewing
$185
Sombre Hummingbird
$185
Buff-breasted Leucippus
$185
Pied-tail
$185
Bluebreast
$185
The Rivoli
$185
Blue-Throated Cazique
$185
De Rham’s Garnet
$185
Henry De Lattre’s Cazique
$185
Rufous-breasted Sabrewing (2)
$185
Blackeared Hummingbird
$185
Crimson Topaz
$185
Fiery Topaz
$185
Chimborazian Hillstar
$185
Pichinchian Hillstar
$185
Estella’s Hillstar
$185
White-sided Hillstar
$185
Black-breasted Hillstar
$185
Adela’s Hillstar
$185
The Mango
$185
Prevost’s Mango
$185
Veraguan Mango
$185
Green-throated Mango
$185
Blue-tailed Mango
$185
Domingo Mango
$185
St. Thomas’s Mango
$185
Porphyry-tailed Mango
$185
Purple-breasted Carib
$185
Green-breasted Carib
$185
Grass-green-breasted Carib
$185
Buff-tailed Velvet-breast
$185
White-tailed Velvet-breast
$185
Blue-fronted Lancebill
$185
Green-fronted Lancebill
$185
Buffon’s Plumeleteer
$185
Golden-tailed Plumeleteer
$185
Blue-breasted Plumeleteer
$185
Emerald-fronted Hummingbird
$185
Schreibers’ Hummingbird
$185
Green-crowned Brilliant
$185
Jameson’s Brilliant
$185
Otera Brilliant
$185
About hummingbird prints
Hummingbirds were John Gould’s passion, and his monograph of the family has five volumes with 360 hand-coloured lithographs. Our prints come from the first four, in his order: the sawbills, sicklebills and hermits of volume 1; the sabrewings, topazes, hillstars, mangoes and jacobins of volume 2, ending with the Snow-cap; the coquettes, racket-tails, trainbearers, comets and thornbills of volume 3; and in volume 4 the Ruby and Topaz, the Giant Hummingbird, the Sword-bill and the puff-legs. Start with the Crimson Topaz or the Marvellous Hummingbird. All of them are on Family of Hummingbirds, and What books did John Gould publish? sets it among his other works.
The other plates come from two very different books. Jean Théodore Descourtilz, who lived in Brazil, drew his hummingbirds at the flowers they feed on, in Oiseaux brillans du Brésil (1834). Audubon’s four hummingbirds, the ruby-throated hummingbird of plate 47 among them, share the large sheet of his eagles.