Title: Ruddy Plover. Plate 230.
Artist: John James Audubon (1785-1851)
Hand colored aquatint and engraving, 1827-38.

Paper size 25 1/4 x 38" (64.1 x 96.5 cm).



From the first printed edition of John James Audubon's "Birds of America". Engraved, printed and colored by Robert Havell, London.

John James Audubon, America's most famous naturalist, was born in Les Cayes, Santo Domingo (now Haiti), on April 26, 1785. His father was a French sea captain, Jean Audubon, and his mother, Jeanne Rabine, was a servant. After his mother died, his father brought him to his home in Coueron, France, a small town near Nantes, where he was raised by his father and step-mother. He was given a formal education; however, his passion was exploring and drawing birds and their nests. In 1803 he was sent to the United States to avoid Napoleon's draft and to run a farm in Mill Grove near Philadelphia that his father had purchased in 1789.

As a naturalist, his interests were traveling, collecting, and drawing interesting specimens, not in running the farm. He, therefore, lost the farm. While in Mill Grove, he met and befriended Lucy Bakewell, who he married in 1808. Audubon knew great financial hardship as his interests were not marketable. The family eventually settled in New Orleans after living in Kentucky, and Audubon found he could make some money drawing portraits and as a taxidermist. He met Alexander Wilson in 1810 and a decade later Audubon developed the idea of publishing his drawings as engravings.

Lacking support in America for his grand project, he left for England in 1826 arriving in Liverpool where he found support for his idea to publish 500 engravings of the Birds of America in life-size. The first engraver selected for the project was William H. Lizars, a prominent natural history engraver in Edinburgh. Audubon's project was on a grand scale, not only did he want the images to be life-size, but he wanted them to be the grandest ornithological work ever published. Lizars was not up to the production demands and produced only a small number of engravings. The project was shifted to London and to one of the most talented aquatint engravers, Robert Havell, Jr. It is interesting to note the distinction between the two engravers, William H. Lizars' work was as a pure engraver, and Robert Havell, Jr. was not just an engraver but a talented master of aquatint, an etching process to add tone and shading to a copper plate. Robert Havell's talent, his ability to produce a high-quality print, quickly suited Audubon and his backers. Between the years 1827 and 1838, 435 aquatint engravings were produced. By the end of the project Audubon had about 175 subscribers, and it is estimated that the total number published was around 200. That means that Robert Havell pulled 87,000 impressions of these mammoth plates in eleven years.

The project made Audubon famous. Even today, he is recognized worldwide as one of the world's finest ornithological artists. The original watercolors of The Birds of America are owned by The New-York Historical Society, which is located at 170 Central Park West, New York City. A visit to the Historical Society when these exquisite watercolors are on display is a must.

As with any great project, there were many hands that helped. His assistant and young artist, Joseph Mason and his two sons, John Woodhouse and Victor Gifford, were important to the artist in the production of this and other projects, namely, the quadrupeds that were produced before Audubon's death in New York City, on January 27, 1851.

Condition: Good condition. Fine original color.