Audubon Chart No. 2

42" x 28" chromolithograph on linen-backed paper with wooden dowels top and bottom for hanging.

Published by the Milton Bradley Company with a copyright date of 1900.

The non-profit Massachusetts Audubon Society was founded in 1896 by Harriet Hemenway. It commissioned four such charts (dated 1898, 1900, 1912 and 1924) in order to educate the public and ultimately prevent the wholesale slaughter of birds needed to create the style of ladies' hat popular at the time. By 1900, Audubon Societies had been established in twenty states, with a collective membership of forty thousand.

Audubon Chart No. 2 depicts twenty-six common birds rendered in watercolor and gouache by Louis Agassiz Fuertes, an American ornithologist and a well-listed artist.

Fuertes' skill at depicting birdlife was arguably greater than even that of John James Audubon. In addition to being meticulously accurate, his bird portraits convey a sense of the living bird by showing them in active poses within appropriate habitats. Fuertes set a new standard for bird illustration and profoundly influenced the great bird artists who succeeded him, such as George Miksch Sutton and Roger Tory Peterson.

CONDITION: Toning throughout. Exfoliation along image edges, primarily on top and bottom corners. Pencil markings on image. Marker and ink notations on back of print. Tape added to bottom dowel and upper center of image, front and back. Upper dowel loose from print for about 2/3 its length.

Still displays quite well in spite of these issues and would look very handsome indeed matted and framed.