Macaw, Cockatoo & Amazon Parrots, Brodtmann Hand-Colored Lithograph, 1816
$605 (£455, €539)
Period original, not a reproduction.
Shipped from the Netherlands, flat, insured and tracked, worldwide. Returns accepted within 14 days.
- Date
- 1816
- Size
- 17.5 × 14.1 in (44.5 × 35.9 cm)
- Condition
- Good. Good condition considering age. Light age toning, occasional foxing, and minor handling wear consistent with a print more than 200 years old. Original hand coloring remains exceptionally bright and attractive. Please review photographs carefully.
- Period
- Early 19th century
- Section
- Birds
- Reference
- f_50609162
Four parrots on one plate, an original hand-colored lithograph by Karl Joseph Brodtmann, published in Lindau in 1816 as part of the Naturhistorische Bilder-Gallerie aus dem Thierreiche. The sheet is numbered "No 9" at the upper right, and each bird is lettered in German and Latin along the bottom: "(1) Der Arras. Psittacus macao", "(3) Der weisse Kakatu. Psittacus cristatus", "(2) Der gelbe brasilianische Papagay. Psittacus garouba" and "(4) Der Amazonen Papagay".
The scarlet macaw dominates the sheet at the upper left, perched on a branch with its long tail sweeping down the sheet, its red plumage set off by blue and yellow in the wings. At the upper right the white cockatoo carries a tall crest. The yellow Brazilian parrot, the garouba, perches below left in yellow and green, and the green Amazon parrot, with a blue patch on the head and a red berry in its claw, sits below right.
Brodtmann, a Swiss lithographer, worked in the first years of the lithographic process, and his animal plates are early examples of lithography in natural history. Of the four birds, the macaw, the garouba and the Amazon parrot are South American, while the cockatoo is not.
