Close-ups
Framed and on the wall
Frame and rooms are illustrations of how the print could look; the description says what is included.
Antique Bird Print of the Pinnated Grouse and Warblers by Wilson 'c.1820'
£550 ($725, €650)
Period original, not a reproduction.
Shipped from the Netherlands, flat, insured and tracked, worldwide. Returns accepted within 14 days.
- Date
- 1820
- Size
- 13.2 × 10.2 in (33.5 × 26 cm)
- Condition
- Fair. Repaired: Repair on tear top margin, sl. affecting image. General age-related toning. Shows some wear and soiling, blank verso. Please study image carefully.
- Period
- Early 19th century
- Section
- Birds
- Reference
- f_24255432
- Colour
- Hand coloured
What the condition grades mean
- Excellent
- Bright and clean, with no faults worth mentioning.
- Very good
- Only light signs of age, such as faint toning.
- Good
- Normal signs of age for a sheet of this period: toning, some foxing, small marks or neat old repairs.
- Fair
- Clear faults such as staining, tears or repairs, priced to match.
Every fault we see is written in the condition note, and the whole sheet is shown uncropped in the photos.
Pinnated grouse and two warblers, an original engraving with hand coloring from Alexander Wilson's American Ornithology, circa 1820. The sheet is lettered at the foot "1. Pinnated Grous, 2. Blue-green Warbler, 3. Nashville W." The plate is signed "Drawn from Nature by A. Wilson".
The grouse, the greater prairie chicken, dominates the plate. It stands in a defiant posture, with its tail fanned out, the neck feathers raised in tufts and the bright yellow air sac on the throat inflated into a round ball. The bird's barred and mottled brown plumage is rendered in fine engraving beneath light watercolor. Two smaller birds sit in the upper left and upper center: a Nashville warbler on a twig and a blue-green warbler, and two more grouse stand at the right in the distance on a flat ground.
Wilson's American Ornithology, issued from 1808 to 1814, was the first major work on the birds of the United States and became the foundation for the work of John James Audubon.
