John James Audubon

Size: ~26 x 39 inches - Original Hand Colored Aquatint Engravings
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Birds of America
Great Footed Hawks
1826-1838
Price: On Request
Print Code: Oraud001

Birds of America
Detail
1826-1838
Price: On Request
Print Code: Oraud001

Birds of America
Detail
1826-1838
Price: On Request
Print Code: Oraud001

Birds of America
Close-up
1826-1838
Price: On Request
Print Code: Oraud001

This outstanding hand colored aquatint engraving has been selected from one of the most sought after and rarest American ornithological publications of all times (Havell's edition of Audubon's Birds of America), published in London between 1826 and 1838. Only 200 copies were originally printed and just a few examples are currently available in today's marketplace.

Details:

A male and a female Peregrine Falcon eating a Green-Winged Teal and Gadwal.
Date: 1827. Dated on the watermark.
Print Style and Medium: Aquatint Engraving on J. Whatman paper. Original Hand Finshing.
Size: Double in folio. Approximately 66 x 99 cm. ~26 x 39 inches.
Marginalia: Plate 16, No.4. Drawn From Nature by John J. Audubon, F.R.S.E. M.W.S. Engraved, Printed and Coloured by R. Havell, London.
John James Audubon (Jean-Jacques Audubon) (April 26, 1785 – January 27, 1851) was a French-American ornithologist, naturalist, and painter. He was notable for his expansive studies to document all types of American birds and for his detailed illustrations that depicted the birds in their natural habitats. His major work, a color-plate book entitled The Birds of America (1827–1839), is considered one of the finest ornithological works ever completed. Audubon identified 25 new species.

The Birds of America - Havell's Edition

In Edinburgh, the Scottish engraver W. H. Lizars began to produce the very first plates for Birds of America. However, after the completion of only ten plates, Lizars' colorists went on strike, and Audubon was forced to continue his pursuit of an engraver. Audubon's dream finally found fruition with Robert Havell, a renowned London engraver. The portfolio of Birds of America, comprised of 435 hand-colored engravings, took twelve years, from 1826 to 1838, to complete. Havell also retouched Lizars' original efforts, adding aquatint to the engraving, and on those ten plates the Havell name appears alongside that of the Scottish engraver's.