Audubon’s Birds of America
In association with The American Museum of Natural History, a luxurious edition printed from six of the original copper plates of Audubon’s masterpiece, Birds of America. They are the first prints to be taken from the original plates since they were used for Audobon himself.
Sir David Attenborough
“These new impressions of the 150-year-old plates could well be judged to be a finer representation of Audubon’s intentions than any produced in the artist’s lifetime”
John James Audubon’s Birds of America - the world’s most expensive book
A rare original copy of John James Audubon’s Birds of America, billed as the world’s most expensive book, sold for a record breaking £7.3 million at Sotheby’s in London in 2010. Only 119 complete copies of the 19th-century book are known to exist, and 108 are owned by museums and libraries.
Audubon painted life-sized illustrations of almost 500 breeds in the 40-inch-high book, which merited several mentions in Darwin’s The Origin Of Species. Born in Haiti in 1785, Audubon grew up in France and emigrated to the U.S. at 18. He had been fascinated by birds since childhood and was determined to illustrate America’s breeds more realistically than ever before.
Audubon himself, though delighted with the superb quality of his original engravings, was vastly disappointed with the colouring of many of the prints.
The process involved 17 stages of hand printing in colour from the original double- elephant plates on a copperplate rolling press, additional watercolour added by hand. Owners of this portfolio of six plates made by Alecto Historical (limited to 125 sets worldwide) need not share Audubon’s disquiet.
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