Rare Large Antique Print of the Flammulated Owl (Psiloscops flammeolus), 1869

About this piece

The flammulated owl (Psiloscops flammeolus), shown under the plate title "Scops Flammeola", 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, and the plates were lithographed and colored by Bowen & Co. of Philadelphia.

A large owl with a pale yellow facial disc perches on a broken pine branch at the upper right, its brown plumage streaked and barred in white and rust. A second, smaller owl sits on a twig in the foliage below left, set against soft green clusters of pine needles. A tiny bird flies across the sky above. The lettering at the lower left reads "Drawn from Nature by Edwin Sheppard", and the Bowen & Co. imprint appears at the lower right.

Elliot's work illustrated North American birds not previously figured by Wilson or Audubon, with particular attention to the American West, including California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and the Rocky Mountains. Many of the birds were drawn from specimens brought back by government expeditions and private collectors.