John James Audubon (1785-1851) lived a tumultuous life riddled with scandal and poverty but his prodigious effort to depict all of America’s birds at life size is today still widely heralded as the standard of wildlife illustration. The monumental Birds of America contains 435 plates depicting 1065 figures of 489 species of American birds, in life size, reproduced from Audubon’s paintings.
Audubon drew largely from specimens gathered in the field or from skins sent to him by naturalists to create his representations. To reproduce his paintings, the images were copied by means of etching on copper plates (often with additional aquatinting and, less frequently, with occasional engraving) and printed in black ink on “double elephant folio” paper by Robert Havell of London (except for plates I-X, which were editioned by W. H. Lizars of Edinburgh). Subsequent to printing, the images were hand colored with watercolor before being distributed, either in installments to subscribers (in eighty-seven parts of five prints each) or as complete bound copies to the general public.
Towhe Bunting
Towhe Bunting [Eastern Towhee], Plate XXIX
It is a plump bird, and becomes very fat in winter, in consequence of which it is named Grasset in Louisiana, where many are shot for the table by the French planters.
Excerpt from Audubon's Ornithological Biography. Edinburgh, 1834-1839.