Birds of America (Easton Press Limited Deluxe Edition)

A$2,000 · Offered by Harry Hartog Rare Books

AUDUBON, John James. Birds of America. Norwalk, Connecticut: The Easton Press, 2016. 7 vols. Large Octavo. 7 volumes in full black leather. Spines with raised bands deeply inlaid in 22-carat gold. All edges gilt. Silk moiré endpapers. Satin ribbon page markers. Pages Smyth-sewn into binding. 500 full-colour plates throughout, reproducing the complete 1844 octavo edition. Deluxe limited edition. Limited to 2,000 numbered sets, this being number 49. John James Audubon (1785–1851) was a French-American naturalist and painter whose ambition was singular and in its own way slightly mad: to find, observe, draw, and publish every species of bird in North America at life size, in its natural habitat, in a posture that conveyed something of its living character. He spent years travelling the continent — on foot, on horseback, by flatboat — shooting specimens, wiring them into lifelike poses, and drawing them with a precision and vividness that no ornithological artist before him had approached. The result was The Birds of America , issued in parts between 1827 and 1838 as a double-elephant folio of 435 hand-coloured aquatint plates, each measuring approximately 39 by 26 inches. It is among the most celebrated illustrated books ever produced, and among the rarest: approximately 120 complete copies are known to survive, most in institutional collections. The most recent copy to come to auction sold for $7.9 million USD. In 1840 Audubon issued a smaller and more affordable octavo edition

• Binding: Hardcover

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