About the Volumes: 

Some of the world’s most beautiful birds are masterfully illustrated in Vieillot and Audebert's 1802 masterpiece “Oiseaux dores ou a reflets metallique.” 

Published in 32 issues over 26 months, the edition was limited to 312 folio copies: 200 captioned in gold, 100 copies captioned in black and 12 copies with the text entirely printed in gold. Only 100 copies of this first edition large quarto set were issued, so it is now unusual to find these rare and beautiful prints.

The plates were etched 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, 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 quarto, or small folio edition was printed in colors in the same way as the folio version, using the unique process developed by Audebert. 

The complete Folio version of these volumes are listed from $71,000 to as much as $160,000 (est), & this quarto version from $8,000. 

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.

Condition:

Appears to be in Very 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. Please peruse the detailed photos. Printed on light thick, creamy wove paper with plate-marks. The hand-coloring appears 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 a text page.

About The Bird:

• This could be the sapphire-bellied hummingbird (Chrysuronia lilliae), an Endangered species of hummingbird in the "emeralds", tribe Trochilini of subfamily Trochilinae. It is endemic to Colombia.
  
• Trochilini is one of the three tribes that make up the subfamily Trochilinae in the hummingbird family Trochilidae. The informal name "emeralds" has been proposed for this group. They range from United States to South America.
• The sapphire-bellied hummingbird is found only in the mangroves of Ciénaga Grande de Santa Marta, a coastal wetland in northern Colombia, and in immediately adjoining arid scrublands.
  
• The IUCN originally assessed the sapphire-bellied hummingbird as Critically Endangered but in 2021 downlisted it to Endangered. It has a very small area of suitable habitat which is undergoing continuing destruction. Its population is estimated at between 285 and 440 mature individuals and believed to be decreasing. Though it occurs in two protected areas, there are very few records at one of them, Vía Parque Isla de Salamanca.
  
• Hummingbirds are birds native to the Americas and comprise the biological family Trochilidae. With approximately 366 species and 113 genera, they occur from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, but most species are found in Central and South America. As of 2024, 21 hummingbird species are listed as endangered or critically endangered, with numerous species declining in population.
  

Shipping: Multiple prints combine into one USPS Flat-Rate envelope. If you'd like to combine & need more time to choose, please send a message & we'll do our best to oblige. If you're assessed multiple shipping for one combined package, we'll endeavor to refund any overage asap.

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