Scarce 1802 AUDEBERT & VIEILLOT Hand-Colored Folio Engraving, Pl. 37 SUNBIRD

Description: Rare 1802 Hand-Colored, Gold-Lettered Folio Copper-Plate Engraving from: OISEAUX DORÉS OU À REFLETS MÉTALLIQUES HISTOIRE NATURELLE PAR J.B. AUDEBERT ET L.P. VIELLOT Le g'd S. á longue queue. Pl. 78. Malachite Sunbird, (Nectarinia famosa) About the Volumes: Some of the world’s most beautiful birds are masterfully illustrated in Vieillot and Audeberts 1802 masterpiece “Oiseaux Dores ou a Reflets Metallique” (Golden or metallic-reflecting birds)Published in 32 issues over 26 months, the edition was limited to 312 folio copies: 200 captioned in gold, 100 copies in-4 captioned in black and 12 copies with the text entirely printed in gold. So this print is one of only 200 of these very precious, super-deluxe copies printed in large folio format with the captions printed with pure gold.(I say 'only' because these large folios are so rare as a volumes let alone as dis-bound prints, even vastly scarcer in gold, but I honestly can't imagine producing 200 of any of these plates, with the incredibly involved coloring process Audebert invented for them, with the additions of precious metals to get the 'metallique' effect literally) The plates were etched & engraved by Audebert after his own designs and those of "les plus habiles artistes de Paris," with the assistance of Louis Bouquet in coloring the plates, and of Langlois in printing them in oil colors.Audebert died before he was able to complete his great work, finishing only the section on the colibris (hummingbirds), after which it was continued by Viellot on the basis of Audebert's drawings and his notes on the oiseaux-mouches.For the “Oiseaux dores ou a reflets metallique” Audebert devised a printing method using a single plate and oils instead of the more typical water based paints. The color printed plates often lavishly decorated with gold to reflect the plumage of the individual birds.This large folio edition using the unique process developed by Audebert, the first edition illustrated with 190 copper-engravings after Jean-Baptiste Audebert’s drawings, printed in color and enhanced with pure gold according to an original technique finalized by Audebert. (Fine Bird Books).The complete Folio version of these volumes are listed from $75,000 to as much as $160,000. At that value, it's not likely we'll be finding any more dis-bound plates, nobody would break apart such a valuable book. I've collected several of the smaller quarto set of the hummingbirds, hard enough to find (one remains, listed separately).I've not much seen the large folio versions of these Oiseaux dores ou a reflets metallique as individual dis-bound prints in recent years, & find none offered at present. I happen to have two magnificent ones, scarce plates, apparently both from the same volume with gold lettering. About the Artist: Jean-Baptiste Audebert (1759-1800) was born at Rochefort. He studied painting and drawing at Paris, and gained reputation as a miniature-painter. Employed in preparing plates for the Histoire des cloportes of Guillaume-Antoine Olivier, he acquired a taste for natural history. His first original work, Histoire naturelle des singes appeared in 1800, illustrated by sixty-two folio plates, drawn and engraved by himself. The coloring in these plates was unusually beautiful, and was applied by this method devised by himself. Audebert died in Paris, leaving complete materials for another work, Histoire des colibris, oiseaux-mouches, jacamars et promerops, which was published in 1802. Two hundred copies were printed in folio, one hundred in large quarto, and fifteen were printed with the whole text in letters of gold. Another work, left unfinished, was also published after the author's death, L'Histoire des grimpereaux et des oiseaux de paradis. The last two works also appeared together in two volumes, Oiseaux dorés, ou à reflets métalliques, (1801-1802) from which this print came, written with his friend Louis Pierre Vieillot. About the Author: Louis Pierre Vieillot (1748–1830) was a French ornithologist. Vieillot is the author of the first scientific descriptions and Linnaean names of a number of birds, including species he collected himself in the West Indies and North America and South American species discovered but not formally named by Félix de Azara and his translator Sonnini de Manoncourt. He was among the first ornithologists to study changes in plumage and one of the first to study live birds. At least 77 of the genera erected by Vieillot are still in use. About the Plate:Every part of these prints was made by hand: Hand drawn & engraved on Copper or steel which was hand-mined, smelted & rolled, printed onto handmade cotton rag paper, inked & colored with hand-ground pigments individually by hand, & they were usually hand sewn into handmade leather-bound books. This print is one of only 200 of the very precious, super-deluxe copies of this volume printed in large folio format with the captions printed with gold. Condition:Appears to be in Good condition for a centuries-old engraving. The hand-coloring appears to remain sharp & brilliant as the day it was painted. Typical age-toning & character for a print this old. Some foxing spots as one typically finds. More marginal spots than some. Small damp-stain lower right corner. Please peruse the detailed photos. Printed on light thick, creamy wove paper with plate-marks. The hand-coloring & gold lettering appear to be magnificent.These prints are very old & may have minor imperfections expected with age, such as some typical age-toning of the paper, oxidation of the old original watercolors, spots, text-offsetting, artifacts from having been bound into a book, etc. Please examine the photos & details carefully.Text Page(s): This one comes without text page(s). About The Bird:This must be the magnificent Malachite Sunbird (Nectarinia famosa).The adult male is metallic green when breeding, with blackish-green wings & small yellow pectoral patches. They are small nectarivorous birds found from the highlands of Ethiopia southwards to South Africa. They pollinate many flowering plants, particularly those with long corolla tubes, in the Fynbos.The sunbirds are a group of small Old World passerine birds, and are placed within the family Nectariniidae, which is found across Africa, the Middle East and into South-east Asia. Also called green sugarbird. Most sunbird species can take nectar by hovering like a hummingbird, but usually perch to feed most of the time. As a fairly large sunbird, the malachite sunbird is no exception. They have long thin down-curved bills and brush-tipped tubular tongues, both adaptations to nectar feeding. Some plant species from which malachite sunbirds feed include many Aloe species, such as Aloe broomii, Aloe ferox and Aloe arborescens, and Protea species, such as Protea roupelliae as well as various other bird-pollinated plants such as Leonotis and Strelitzia.It has been suggested that their behaviour of guarding flowering plants may have led to the selection and evolution of long-tubed flowers that would otherwise tend to be robbed (nectar taken but not pollinated) by short-billed sunbird species. Size: 19-1/2" x 12-1/2" inches approximately. Combined Shipping: Yes! Multiple prints can be combine into one Priority Mail package. Larger prints may need to be shipped in tube. eBay should auto-combine your items if you put all of your selections into your shopping cart & check out all together as one order. If you purchase them individually, eBay charges shipping on each. If you're assessed multiple shipping charges for one combined package, I will endeavor to refund any overage asap. For International Combined Shipping through eBay's International Shipping Program, Please Note: At the moment, I've been offering eBay's International Shipping Program. This new shipping program has some advantages since they manage the customs forms, etc. But it apparently has some bugs, It won't allow me to refund shipping overages for individual purchases. So please note: The only way their international shipping program allows combined shipping, is if you put all the items in your cart & check out at once. Otherwise it requires me to ship each item separately in it's own package with its own label. Ebay's International Shipping doesn't allow 'Best Offer' for combined shipping since 'best-offer' requires individual checkout, which then can't be combined in this program (I don't get it either...). So if shipping multiple items in one package is important, the only way it works in eBay's International Shipping Program is if you load them all into your cart, without best-offer, & check out at once. If I accept a best offer for international buyers, the items won't be able to be combined for one shipping cost... Insurance: USPS Priority Mail typically insures a Priority Mail package or envelope for a maximum of $100. If the value of your combined purchase goes over that, I may not always be able to absorb this cost, they do allow me to add the additional insurance cost to cover the additional value. I do pack very carefully. In the extremely rare case that USPS damages anything in transit, the best way to be refunded for your purchase is to actually take your physical package to the Post Office & file a claim. It gets tedious to try to document & file a claim from my end, but I'll do my best to help ~ Thanks for Visiting!

Price: 395 USD

Location: Great Barrington, Massachusetts

End Time: 2025-01-19T05:37:38.000Z

Shipping Cost: 15 USD