Rare Large Antique Bird Print Depicting Xantus's Murrlets, 1869

1869 · Birds, Plants & Natural History

Rare Large Antique Bird Print Depicting Xantus's Murrlets, 1869

Name: Rare Large Antique Bird Print Depicting Xantus's Murrlets, 1869
Brand: American Maps and Prints
SKU: BGI-01374
Price: 1345 USD
Availability: InStock

$1,345

€1,200 · dollar price at today's exchange rate

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Shipping to the United States: $51 standard, $73 express, insured and tracked.

Date: 1869
Kind: Birds, Plants & Natural History
Size: 41 × 50 cm (16.1 × 19.7 in)
Period: The Gilded Age
Reference: BGI-01374

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

Xantus's murrelets, plate title "Brachyramphus Hypoleucus", an original large folio lithograph with hand color from Daniel Giraud Elliot's The New and Heretofore Unfigured Species of the Birds of North America. The work was published in New York for the author between 1866 and 1869, with plates lithographed and colored by Bowen & Co. of Philadelphia.

The composition is a seabird scene on a rocky coast. One murrelet, dark above and white below, stands upright on a mossy ledge at the right, a second stands higher on the cliff behind, and a third flies low across the water at the center. Small gulls and distant swimming birds dot the sea, which fades into a pale pink and blue horizon at the left. The lettering at the lower left reads "Drawn from Nature by D.G. Elliot, F.Z.S.", with the Bowen & Co. imprint at the lower right.

Elliot's folio concentrated on species of the American West, including the Pacific coast, that Wilson and Audubon had not figured. Many of his subjects were drawn from specimens brought back by government expeditions and private collectors.

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