A boy among the birds of Surinam
François Levaillant was born in 1753 in Paramaribo, in the Dutch colony of Surinam, where his father was the French consul. He grew up at the edge of the forest, collecting birds and insects, and when the family returned to France in 1763 he took the habit with him. He studied natural history at Metz and later made his living as a dealer in specimens.
He is remembered for two things: his travels in southern Africa, which made him a celebrity in his own lifetime, and the bird books he published afterwards, among the most lavish ever printed. The second is why his name is on 58 of our prints.
Travels at the Cape
Between 1781 and 1784 Levaillant travelled through the Cape Colony and beyond, into country few Europeans had seen, collecting birds and living with the people he met. His Voyage dans l'intérieur de l'Afrique (1790) was read all over Europe. The ornithological harvest was the Histoire naturelle des oiseaux d'Afrique, six volumes issued in 51 parts between 1799 and 1808, with plates engraved after Johann Lebrecht Reinold in the new technique of stipple, which allowed the subtlety of watercolour.
Levaillant was a storyteller as much as a scientist. He refused the Latin names of Linnaeus and gave his birds French ones, and some of the species he described were later found not to exist, put together from more than one bird or from a traveller's tale. Later ornithologists had to sort his real birds from his invented ones. It takes nothing from the plates.
Levaillant and Barraband
In Paris he found the painter who made his later books. Jacques Barraband (1767-1809), trained at the Gobelins and at Sèvres, was already known for his flowers and birds and is held to be the foremost bird painter of his time in France. From 1801 to 1805 the two produced the Histoire naturelle des perroquets: two volumes with 145 plates, the parrots of the world. The plates were engraved in stipple by Bouquet and Langlois after Barraband's watercolours, inked in colour à la poupée, with the colours applied to the one plate, and finished by hand.
Like every bird collector of his time, Levaillant observed his birds, shot them and described them. He wrote in his journal:
Having observed the first afternoon some peroquets flying through the air in order to go and drink at the river, I watched them, and was lucky enough to kill one of them. It was a new species, which has never yet been described; its size approaches that of the ash-coloured peroquet of Guinea; its general colour is a green of different shades, but the legs and the tip of the wings are a beautiful orange.
Birds of paradise, rollers and toucans
Between 1801 and 1806 came the Histoire naturelle des oiseaux de paradis et des rolliers, suivie de celle des toucans et des barbus: two volumes with 114 plates after Barraband. The birds of paradise open the work; eighteen of the plates are given to the toucans and araçaris, among them the red-belted araçari 'in extreme old age'. In these books the birds seem to glow on the paper: brilliant colour, a near-perfect rendering of feathers and a mastery of the colour printing of the day.
Levaillant at Heritage Prints
Our collection holds 45 plates of the Perroquets, 12 of the Toucans and one bird of paradise, Le Sifilet, from the Oiseaux de paradis. The parrots are photographed from the copy in the Teylers Museum in Haarlem and printed at the size of the original sheets, 33.5 by 51.5 cm, by Re-Art Special Art Productions in Almere, in an edition of 250 per plate, numbered in pencil, blind embossed and with a certificate of authenticity.
All of them are at François Levaillant. About the painter: Who was Jacques Barraband?.
Four plates after Barraband
Questions
What is François Levaillant known for?
For his travels in southern Africa in the 1780s and for the lavish bird books he published afterwards: the Histoire naturelle des oiseaux d'Afrique (1799-1808), the Histoire naturelle des perroquets (1801-1805) and the birds of paradise, rollers, toucans and barbets (1801-1806).
Who painted the birds in Levaillant's books?
Jacques Barraband (1767-1809), the foremost bird painter of his time in France, painted the parrots, birds of paradise and toucans. The plates were engraved in stipple after his watercolours, printed in colour and finished by hand.
Where was Levaillant born?
In Paramaribo, in the Dutch colony of Surinam, in 1753, where his father was the French consul. The family returned to France in 1763.