1770 · Birds, Plants & Natural History
Hand-Colored Engraving of the American Pelican by Seligman, c.1770
$770
€690 · dollar price at today's exchange rate
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Shipping to the United States: $51 standard, $73 express, insured and tracked.
- Date
- 1770
- Kind
- Birds, Plants & Natural History
- Size
- 37 × 25 cm (14.6 × 9.8 in)
- Period
- Colonial America
- Reference
- BG-13949
What the condition grades mean
- Excellent
- Bright and clean, with no faults worth mentioning.
- Very good
- Only light signs of age, such as faint toning.
- Good
- Normal signs of age for a sheet of this period: toning, some foxing, small marks or neat old repairs.
- Fair
- Clear faults such as staining, tears or repairs, priced to match.
Every fault we see is written in the condition note, and the whole sheet is shown uncropped in the photos.
Guaranteed original. This is an original of the period stated, not a later reproduction or print-on-demand copy. If it is ever shown to be otherwise, we refund you in full.
Shipping to the United States. Sent from our gallery in Langweer, the Netherlands, flat between boards or rolled in a tube, and fully insured.
Delivery and import charges.
About this piece
The brown pelican, titled "Der americanische Pelican", in an original hand-colored copperplate engraving from Johann Michael Seligmann's Sammlung verschiedener ausländischer und seltener Vögel, Nuremberg, circa 1770. The plate is numbered "Tab. LXXXI" at the upper left and lettered below with the Latin "Onocratalus, Americanus", "N° 81 IV Theil" and the French "Le Pelican de l'Amerique", with the credit "G. Edwards ad viv. delin." at the lower left and Seligmann's "excud." at the lower right.
A single pelican stands in profile facing left on a pale rock rising from a still stretch of water. The head and neck are white with a dark patch at the eye, the long bill is yellow with a red tip and a loose, pale pouch below it, and the body is gray-black with edged feathers and a hint of brown at the shoulder. The webbed feet are yellow. Beside the rock, a branched coral stands at the left, and shells in pink and purple lie at the right edge, making it a coastal scene.
The drawing is by George Edwards, whose volumes on rare birds gave European readers some of the first accurate pictures of American species, and Seligmann translated his plates for German buyers with captions in German, Latin and French.
