Antique Natural HistoryOriginal plates from the naturalists' books, 1600s to 1900s
Tanagers and Cotingas, Brazilian Bird Print, Descourtilz, 1944
Tanagers and Cotingas, Brazilian Bird Print, Descourtilz, 1944, view 2
Tanagers and Cotingas, Brazilian Bird Print, Descourtilz, 1944, view 3
Tanagers and Cotingas, Brazilian Bird Print, Descourtilz, 1944, view 4
Tanagers and Cotingas, Brazilian Bird Print, Descourtilz, 1944, view 5

Framed and on the wall

Tanagers and Cotingas, Brazilian Bird Print, Descourtilz, 1944, shown framedTanagers and Cotingas, Brazilian Bird Print, Descourtilz, 1944, shown framed on a wallTanagers and Cotingas, Brazilian Bird Print, Descourtilz, 1944, shown framed in a room

Frame and rooms are illustrations of how the print could look; the description says what is included.

Tanagers and Cotingas, Brazilian Bird Print, Descourtilz, 1944

£280 ($370, €330)

Period original, not a reproduction.

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Shipped from the Netherlands, flat, insured and tracked, worldwide. Returns accepted within 14 days.

Date
1944
Technique
Other
Coloring
Printed color
Condition
Good. Good condition for its age. The mount is toned with a few small spots and light wear to the edges; the image itself is clean. Please review the images for further condition details.
Period
20th century
Section
Birds
Reference
BG-14389-1-29
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.

Tanagers and cotingas print after Descourtilz, dated 1944 and issued as Estampa 29 of the Ornitologia Brasileira, a color offset print from Jean-Théodore Descourtilz's paintings of Brazilian birds.

Four birds and a spider's web occupy a thorny, leafy branch. At upper left, a bird with a blue body and a dark maroon-red throat patch perches close to the fork of the branch. At upper right, a second bird shows a black head, a yellow-green body and a patch of chestnut brown across the wing. Below and to the right, a third bird has a green back scaled in black over a yellow belly marked with small red spots at the flank. At the bottom of the plate, a fourth and brilliantly red bird, its wingtips dark and its tail red tipped in black, perches near the base of the branch. A spider's web, complete with its maker at the center, is strung between two twigs at the left of the composition, a small naturalistic touch not repeated elsewhere in the volume.

The plate comes from the Ornitologia Brasileira ou História Natural das Aves do Brasil, notáveis por sua plumagem, canto e hábitos, issued in 1944 by Livraria Kosmos Editora of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. First published in French in the 1850s, the work appeared here in its first Portuguese edition, translated by Eurico Santos and limited to 1,315 copies, 1,000 plus 315 numbered. Each of its 48 color offset plates is captioned "Estampa" with its number and mounted on a toned card with a printed green ornamental border.

Descourtilz, a French painter and naturalist who lived from circa 1796 to 1855, traveled to Brazil in the late 1820s and devoted himself to painting its birds. His first work on the birds of Brazil appeared in 1834.

This tanagers and cotingas print after Descourtilz is decorative and strong in color, and works well framed on its own in a study or hallway or hung with other Brazilian bird prints from the same volume.

This plate is in good condition for its age. The mount shows ordinary age toning, with a few small spots and light wear to the edges; the image itself is clean. Please review the images for further condition details.

This is an original print, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed. Any framed or interior images are shown for presentation and inspiration only, unless the listing explicitly states that the item is sold framed.

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