Birds of America (book)
Encyclopedia
The Birds of America is a book by naturalist
and painter
John James Audubon
, containing illustrations of a wide variety of birds of the United States. It was first published as a series of sections between 1827 and 1838, in Edinburgh and London.
The work consists of hand-coloured, life-size prints
, made from engraved
plates, measuring around 39 by. It includes images of six now-extinct birds: Carolina Parakeet
, Passenger Pigeon
, Labrador Duck
, Great Auk
,
Esquimaux Curlew
, and Pinnated Grouse
.
, and pen and ink). As early as 1807, he developed a method of using wires and threads to hold dead birds in life-like poses while he drew them.
In 1823, Audubon went to Philadelphia and New York, looking for financial support in the form of subscribers to enable him to publish his artwork, but he found support lacking. As a result, in 1826, he set sail for the United Kingdom with 250 of his original illustrations, looking for the financial support of subscribers and the technical abilities of engravers and printers. After exhibiting his drawings in Liverpool and Manchester, he journeyed to Edinburgh, where he met the accomplished engraver William H. Lizars. Lizars engraved up to ten of the first plates but was unable to continue the project when his colourists went on strike. In 1827, Audubon engaged the noted London animal engraver Robert Havell Jr.
, and his father, Robert Havell Sr
. Havell Jr. oversaw the project through to its completion in 1838.
The original edition of Birds of America (sometimes called the Havell Edition after its printer, and sometimes called the "Double Elephant Folio"
because of its size) was printed on handmade paper 39.5 inches tall by 28.5 inches wide. The principal printing technique was copperplate etching, but engraving and aquatint
were also used. Watercolour was then added by hand.
Audubon funded the costly printing project through a pay-as-you-go subscription. From 1826 to 1829, he travelled around the UK and to Paris, lecturing on ornithology and frontier American life in an effort to entice wealthy patrons to subscribe to the series of prints. Subscribers included Charles X of France
, Queen Adelaide
of Britain (wife of William IV), Earl Spencer
, and, later, the Americans Daniel Webster
and Henry Clay
.
Prints were issued in sets of five every month or two in tin cases and each set usually included one very large bird, one medium-sized bird, and three small birds. In 1838, at the end of the thirteen-year project, 435 plates (87 sets of five) had been issued at a total cost of $870 or 175 British guineas (£183.75). The plates were published unbound and without any text to avoid having to furnish free copies to the public libraries in England. It is estimated that not more than 200 complete sets were ever compiled. An accompanying text, issued separately, was written by Audubon and the Scottish naturalist and ornithologist William MacGillivray
and published in five volumes in Edinburgh
between 1831 and 1839, under the title Ornithological Biography, or, An account of the habits of the birds of the United States of America. The additional cost of the five volumes of text brought the total cost of plates and text to about $1000.
After the folio edition was completed, Audubon decided to produce a more affordable edition and employed a lithographer from Philadelphia named J. T. Bowen. Bowen and his team created an octavo edition, which was issued to subscribers in seven volumes and completed in 1844 after selling 1,199 sets. Five more octavo editions were completed through 1877. The octavo edition used the text of the Ornithological biography but increased the number of plates to 500, separating some birds which had originally appeared together. Some new drawings were included, mostly by John Woodhouse though Audubon and members of Bowen's team also contributed.
The Bien Edition was published in 1858 by Roe Lockwood in New York under the supervision of Audubon’s sons. Due in part to the Civil War, the edition was never finished. This edition consisted of 105 plates and included none of the original text. Fewer than 100 subscriptions were sold, making this edition rarer than other early editions.
, which owns a complete collection of Birds of America that had been recently restored and preserved by the Etherington Conservation Center, mounted a major exhibition of 62 selected plates and other materials in its University Art Gallery. Following this, the university constructed an exhibit case on the ground floor of the school's Hillman Library
in order to continuously display a rotating selection of plates to the public. Single plates are exhibited for two weeks at a time in plate number order. In 2007, the university undertook a project to digitize every plate form Birds of America, as well as Audubon's Ornithological Biography, and, for the first time, presented the complete set for public viewing in one place on the web.
Philadelphia's Academy of Natural Sciences
, an original subscriber to Birds of America has a daily "page turning" event at 3:15 p.m. in the Academy's Ewell Sale Stewart Library. The Academy's website also includes a digital version of the event.
In 2007 the book was the subject of an exhibition by the Teylers Museum
in Haarlem
, which owns a copy it ordered from the original subscription, along with the table sold to house and display it. The book's subsections fit into special drawers around a fly-leaf table; the table formed the centerpiece for gatherings of the Teyler's gentleman's society of science. To commemorate the book's record-breaking sale, the museum has decided to display its copy (for which the museum eventually paid 2200 guilder
s—a fortune at the time—during the years 1827-1838) from now until January 2011.
All of John James Audubon's known extant watercolors preparatory for Birds of America are housed at the New-York Historical Society
in New York City.
The Stark Museum of Art
in Orange, Texas
owns and exhibits John James Audubon's personal copy of Birds of America.
In 2010 the North Carolina Museum of Art
began a five-year exhibition of its restored four-volume set purchased for the state by Governor William Alexander Graham
in 1846.
(New York) for $8,802,500. In December 2005 an unbound copy, the Providence Athenaeum Set, sold, again at Christie's (New York), for $5.6 million.
On 6 December 2010, a complete copy of the first edition was sold in London at Sotheby's
for £7,321,250 (approximately $11.5 million) during the sale of Magnificent Books, Manuscripts and Drawings from the Collection of Frederick, Second Lord Hesketh
. The winning bid was a record auction price for a printed book and was placed by London-based art dealer Michael Tollemache, who outbid three others during the auction. According to the provenance
details reported by the auction house, the copy's original owner was Henry Witham
of Durham, listed as subscriber 11 in Audubon's Ornithological Biography; the first volume of the set bears a presentation inscription from Witham's wife, dated 24 June 1831. Lord Hesketh had bought the copy from a descendant of Witham at a Christie's
auction on 3 July 1951, paying £7,000.
File:Zenaida macrouraAWP17AA.jpg|Zenaida macroura
File:Audubon-CanadaGoose.jpg|Canada Goose
File:Audubon-Flamingo.jpg|American Flamingo
File:Audubon-Paridae.jpg|Paridae
File:Audubon-peregrinus.jpg|Peregrine Falcon
File:Campephilus_principalisAWP066AA2.jpg|Ivory-billed Woodpecker
File:Audubon-gyrfalcon.jpg|Gyrfalcon
File:John-James-Audubon-001.jpg|Trumpeter Swan
Complete Collection
Natural history
Natural history is the scientific research of plants or animals, leaning more towards observational rather than experimental methods of study, and encompasses more research published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the natural sciences, natural history is the systematic study...
and painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
John James Audubon
John James Audubon
John James Audubon 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...
, containing illustrations of a wide variety of birds of the United States. It was first published as a series of sections between 1827 and 1838, in Edinburgh and London.
The work consists of hand-coloured, life-size prints
Printmaking
Printmaking is the process of making artworks by printing, normally on paper. Printmaking normally covers only the process of creating prints with an element of originality, rather than just being a photographic reproduction of a painting. Except in the case of monotyping, the process is capable...
, made from engraved
Engraving
Engraving is the practice of incising a design on to a hard, usually flat surface, by cutting grooves into it. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an intaglio printing plate, of copper or another metal, for printing...
plates, measuring around 39 by. It includes images of six now-extinct birds: Carolina Parakeet
Carolina Parakeet
The Carolina Parakeet was the only parrot species native to the eastern United States. It was found from the Ohio Valley to the Gulf of Mexico, and lived in old forests along rivers. It was the only species at the time classified in the genus Conuropsis...
, Passenger Pigeon
Passenger Pigeon
The Passenger Pigeon or Wild Pigeon was a bird, now extinct, that existed in North America and lived in enormous migratory flocks until the early 20th century...
, Labrador Duck
Labrador Duck
The Labrador Duck was a striking black and white eider-like sea duck that was never common, and is believed to be the first bird to become extinct in North America after 1500. The last Labrador Duck is believed to have been seen at Elmira, New York on December 12, 1878; the last preserved specimen...
, Great Auk
Great Auk
The Great Auk, Pinguinus impennis, formerly of the genus Alca, was a large, flightless alcid that became extinct in the mid-19th century. It was the only modern species in the genus Pinguinus, a group of birds that formerly included one other species of flightless giant auk from the Atlantic Ocean...
,
Esquimaux Curlew
Eskimo Curlew
The Eskimo or the "Northern Curlew" is a critically endangered shorebird, now considered by many to be extinct.-Taxonomy:The Eskimo Curlew is one of eight species of curlew, and is classed with them in the genus Numenius. It was formerly placed in the separate genus Mesoscolopax. Numenius is...
, and Pinnated Grouse
Heath Hen
The Heath Hen was a distinctive subspecies of the Greater Prairie Chicken, Tympanuchus cupido, a large North American bird in the grouse family, or possibly a distinct species....
.
Early publication history
About 1820, around the age of 35, Audubon declared his intention to paint every bird in North America. In his bird art, he mainly forsook oil paint, the medium of serious artists of the day, in favour of watercolours and pastel crayons (and occasionally pencil, charcoal, chalk, gouacheGouache
Gouache[p], also spelled guache, the name of which derives from the Italian guazzo, water paint, splash or bodycolor is a type of paint consisting of pigment suspended in water. A binding agent, usually gum arabic, is also present, just as in watercolor...
, and pen and ink). As early as 1807, he developed a method of using wires and threads to hold dead birds in life-like poses while he drew them.
In 1823, Audubon went to Philadelphia and New York, looking for financial support in the form of subscribers to enable him to publish his artwork, but he found support lacking. As a result, in 1826, he set sail for the United Kingdom with 250 of his original illustrations, looking for the financial support of subscribers and the technical abilities of engravers and printers. After exhibiting his drawings in Liverpool and Manchester, he journeyed to Edinburgh, where he met the accomplished engraver William H. Lizars. Lizars engraved up to ten of the first plates but was unable to continue the project when his colourists went on strike. In 1827, Audubon engaged the noted London animal engraver Robert Havell Jr.
Havell family
The Havell family of Reading, Berkshire, England included a number of notable engravers, etchers and painters, as well as writers, publishers, educators, and musicians. In particular, members of this family were foremost practitioners of aquatint; and had a long association with Indian art and...
, and his father, Robert Havell Sr
Havell family
The Havell family of Reading, Berkshire, England included a number of notable engravers, etchers and painters, as well as writers, publishers, educators, and musicians. In particular, members of this family were foremost practitioners of aquatint; and had a long association with Indian art and...
. Havell Jr. oversaw the project through to its completion in 1838.
Book size
The size of a book is generally measured by the height against the width of a leaf, or sometimes the height and width of its cover. A series of terms is commonly used by libraries and publishers for the general sizes of modern books, ranging from "folio" , to "quarto" and "octavo"...
because of its size) was printed on handmade paper 39.5 inches tall by 28.5 inches wide. The principal printing technique was copperplate etching, but engraving and aquatint
Aquatint
Aquatint is an intaglio printmaking technique, a variant of etching.Intaglio printmaking makes marks on the matrix that are capable of holding ink. The inked plate is passed through a printing press together with a sheet of paper, resulting in a transfer of the ink to the paper...
were also used. Watercolour was then added by hand.
Audubon funded the costly printing project through a pay-as-you-go subscription. From 1826 to 1829, he travelled around the UK and to Paris, lecturing on ornithology and frontier American life in an effort to entice wealthy patrons to subscribe to the series of prints. Subscribers included Charles X of France
Charles X of France
Charles X was known for most of his life as the Comte d'Artois before he reigned as King of France and of Navarre from 16 September 1824 until 2 August 1830. A younger brother to Kings Louis XVI and Louis XVIII, he supported the latter in exile and eventually succeeded him...
, Queen Adelaide
Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen
Princess Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen was the queen consort of the United Kingdom and of Hanover as spouse of William IV of the United Kingdom. Adelaide, the capital city of South Australia, is named after her.-Early life:Adelaide was born on 13 August 1792 at Meiningen, Thuringia, Germany...
of Britain (wife of William IV), Earl Spencer
George Spencer, 2nd Earl Spencer
George John Spencer, 2nd Earl Spencer KG PC FRS FSA , styled Viscount Althorp from 1765 to 1783, was a British Whig politician...
, and, later, the Americans Daniel Webster
Daniel Webster
Daniel Webster was a leading American statesman and senator from Massachusetts during the period leading up to the Civil War. He first rose to regional prominence through his defense of New England shipping interests...
and Henry Clay
Henry Clay
Henry Clay, Sr. , was a lawyer, politician and skilled orator who represented Kentucky separately in both the Senate and in the House of Representatives...
.
Prints were issued in sets of five every month or two in tin cases and each set usually included one very large bird, one medium-sized bird, and three small birds. In 1838, at the end of the thirteen-year project, 435 plates (87 sets of five) had been issued at a total cost of $870 or 175 British guineas (£183.75). The plates were published unbound and without any text to avoid having to furnish free copies to the public libraries in England. It is estimated that not more than 200 complete sets were ever compiled. An accompanying text, issued separately, was written by Audubon and the Scottish naturalist and ornithologist William MacGillivray
William MacGillivray
William MacGillivray FRSE MWS was a Scottish naturalist and ornithologist.MacGillivray was born in Old Aberdeen and brought up on the island of Harris. He returned to Aberdeen where he attended King's College, graduating MA in 1815. He studied medicine, but did not complete the course...
and published in five volumes in Edinburgh
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
between 1831 and 1839, under the title Ornithological Biography, or, An account of the habits of the birds of the United States of America. The additional cost of the five volumes of text brought the total cost of plates and text to about $1000.
After the folio edition was completed, Audubon decided to produce a more affordable edition and employed a lithographer from Philadelphia named J. T. Bowen. Bowen and his team created an octavo edition, which was issued to subscribers in seven volumes and completed in 1844 after selling 1,199 sets. Five more octavo editions were completed through 1877. The octavo edition used the text of the Ornithological biography but increased the number of plates to 500, separating some birds which had originally appeared together. Some new drawings were included, mostly by John Woodhouse though Audubon and members of Bowen's team also contributed.
The Bien Edition was published in 1858 by Roe Lockwood in New York under the supervision of Audubon’s sons. Due in part to the Civil War, the edition was never finished. This edition consisted of 105 plates and included none of the original text. Fewer than 100 subscriptions were sold, making this edition rarer than other early editions.
Public exhibition
In 2003, the University of PittsburghUniversity of Pittsburgh
The University of Pittsburgh, commonly referred to as Pitt, is a state-related research university located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded as Pittsburgh Academy in 1787 on what was then the American frontier, Pitt is one of the oldest continuously chartered institutions of...
, which owns a complete collection of Birds of America that had been recently restored and preserved by the Etherington Conservation Center, mounted a major exhibition of 62 selected plates and other materials in its University Art Gallery. Following this, the university constructed an exhibit case on the ground floor of the school's Hillman Library
Hillman Library
Hillman Library is the largest library and the center of administration for the University Library System of the University of Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States...
in order to continuously display a rotating selection of plates to the public. Single plates are exhibited for two weeks at a time in plate number order. In 2007, the university undertook a project to digitize every plate form Birds of America, as well as Audubon's Ornithological Biography, and, for the first time, presented the complete set for public viewing in one place on the web.
Philadelphia's Academy of Natural Sciences
Academy of Natural Sciences
The Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, formerly Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, is the oldest natural science research institution and museum in the New World...
, an original subscriber to Birds of America has a daily "page turning" event at 3:15 p.m. in the Academy's Ewell Sale Stewart Library. The Academy's website also includes a digital version of the event.
In 2007 the book was the subject of an exhibition by the Teylers Museum
Teylers Museum
Teyler's Museum , located in Haarlem, is the oldest museum in the Netherlands. The museum is in the former home of Pieter Teyler van der Hulst . He was a wealthy cloth merchant and Amsterdam banker of Scottish descent, who bequeathed his fortune for the advancement of religion, art and science...
in Haarlem
Haarlem
Haarlem is a municipality and a city in the Netherlands. It is the capital of the province of North Holland, the northern half of Holland, which at one time was the most powerful of the seven provinces of the Dutch Republic...
, which owns a copy it ordered from the original subscription, along with the table sold to house and display it. The book's subsections fit into special drawers around a fly-leaf table; the table formed the centerpiece for gatherings of the Teyler's gentleman's society of science. To commemorate the book's record-breaking sale, the museum has decided to display its copy (for which the museum eventually paid 2200 guilder
Guilder
Guilder is the English translation of the Dutch gulden — from Old Dutch for 'golden'. The guilder originated as a gold coin but has been a common name for a silver or base metal coin for some centuries...
s—a fortune at the time—during the years 1827-1838) from now until January 2011.
All of John James Audubon's known extant watercolors preparatory for Birds of America are housed at the New-York Historical Society
New-York Historical Society
The New-York Historical Society is an American history museum and library located in New York City at the corner of 77th Street and Central Park West in Manhattan. Founded in 1804 as New York's first museum, the New-York Historical Society presents exhibitions, public programs and research that...
in New York City.
The Stark Museum of Art
Stark Museum of Art
The Stark Museum of Art, in Orange, Texas, houses one of the nation’s most significant collections of American Western art. The Western Art collection conveys the artistic interpretation of the western region over two centuries....
in Orange, Texas
Orange, Texas
Orange is a city in Orange County, Texas, United States. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 18,643. It is the county seat of Orange County, and is the easternmost city in Texas. Located on the Sabine River at the border with Louisiana, it is part of the Beaumont–Port Arthur...
owns and exhibits John James Audubon's personal copy of Birds of America.
In 2010 the North Carolina Museum of Art
North Carolina Museum of Art
The North Carolina Museum of Art is an art museum in Raleigh, North Carolina, featuring paintings and sculpture representing 5,000 years of artistic work from antiquity to the present. The museum features more than 40 galleries as well as more than a dozen works of art in its Museum Park...
began a five-year exhibition of its restored four-volume set purchased for the state by Governor William Alexander Graham
William Alexander Graham
William Alexander Graham was a United States Senator from North Carolina from 1840 to 1843, the 30th Governor of North Carolina from 1845 to 1849 and United States Secretary of the Navy from 1850 to 1852. He was also a candidate for the vice-presidency in 1852.-Education:Graham was born near...
in 1846.
Recent sales
In December 2010, The Economist magazine estimated that, adjusted for inflation, five of the ten highest prices ever paid for printed books were paid for copies of Birds of America. Of the 119 copies known to survive, only eleven are held in private collections. In March 2000 the Fox-Bute copy sold at Christie'sChristie's
Christie's is an art business and a fine arts auction house.- History :The official company literature states that founder James Christie conducted the first sale in London, England, on 5 December 1766, and the earliest auction catalogue the company retains is from December 1766...
(New York) for $8,802,500. In December 2005 an unbound copy, the Providence Athenaeum Set, sold, again at Christie's (New York), for $5.6 million.
On 6 December 2010, a complete copy of the first edition was sold in London at Sotheby's
Sotheby's
Sotheby's is the world's fourth oldest auction house in continuous operation.-History:The oldest auction house in operation is the Stockholms Auktionsverk founded in 1674, the second oldest is Göteborgs Auktionsverk founded in 1681 and third oldest being founded in 1731, all Swedish...
for £7,321,250 (approximately $11.5 million) during the sale of Magnificent Books, Manuscripts and Drawings from the Collection of Frederick, Second Lord Hesketh
Frederick Fermor-Hesketh, 2nd Baron Hesketh
Frederick Fermor-Hesketh, 2nd Baron Hesketh was a British peer and soldier.-Early life:Hesketh was the son of Thomas Fermor-Hesketh, 1st Baron Hesketh, and Florence Louise Breckinridge, of Kentucky, daughter of John Witherspoon Breckinridge, and granddaughter of General John C Breckinridge,...
. The winning bid was a record auction price for a printed book and was placed by London-based art dealer Michael Tollemache, who outbid three others during the auction. According to the provenance
Provenance
Provenance, from the French provenir, "to come from", refers to the chronology of the ownership or location of an historical object. The term was originally mostly used for works of art, but is now used in similar senses in a wide range of fields, including science and computing...
details reported by the auction house, the copy's original owner was Henry Witham
Henry Witham
Henry T M Witham was the first English person to investigate the internal structure of fossil plants, and was a founder member of the Royal Geological Society....
of Durham, listed as subscriber 11 in Audubon's Ornithological Biography; the first volume of the set bears a presentation inscription from Witham's wife, dated 24 June 1831. Lord Hesketh had bought the copy from a descendant of Witham at a Christie's
Christie's
Christie's is an art business and a fine arts auction house.- History :The official company literature states that founder James Christie conducted the first sale in London, England, on 5 December 1766, and the earliest auction catalogue the company retains is from December 1766...
auction on 3 July 1951, paying £7,000.
Gallery
File:Zenaida macrouraAWP17AA.jpg|
File:Audubon-CanadaGoose.jpg|
Canada Goose
The Canada Goose is a wild goose belonging to the genus Branta, which is native to arctic and temperate regions of North America, having a black head and neck, white patches on the face, and a brownish-gray body....
File:Audubon-Flamingo.jpg|
File:Audubon-Paridae.jpg|
File:Audubon-peregrinus.jpg|
Peregrine Falcon
The Peregrine Falcon , also known as the Peregrine, and historically as the Duck Hawk in North America, is a widespread bird of prey in the family Falconidae. A large, crow-sized falcon, it has a blue-gray back, barred white underparts, and a black head and "moustache"...
File:Campephilus_principalisAWP066AA2.jpg|
Ivory-billed Woodpecker
The Ivory-billed Woodpecker is or was one of the largest woodpeckers in the world, at roughly 20 inches in length and 30 inches in wingspan. It was native to the virgin forests of the southeastern United States...
File:Audubon-gyrfalcon.jpg|
Gyrfalcon
The Gyrfalcon — Falco rusticolus — is the largest of the falcon species. The Gyrfalcon breeds on Arctic coasts and the islands of North America, Europe, and Asia. It is mainly resident there also, but some Gyrfalcons disperse more widely after the breeding season, or in winter.Individual vagrancy...
File:John-James-Audubon-001.jpg|
Trumpeter Swan
The Trumpeter Swan, Cygnus buccinator, is the largest native North American bird, if measured in terms of weight and length, and is the largest living waterfowl species on earth. It is the North American counterpart of the European Whooper Swan.-Description:Males typically measure from and weigh...
Complete Collection
External links
- Birds of America at the University of Pittsburgh with high resolution images of all 435 double elephant folios