Two Magnificent Hand-Colored Antique Prints of a Toucan, Ca.1805, Rare

Name: Two Magnificent Hand-Colored Antique Prints of a Toucan, Ca.1805, Rare
Brand: American Maps and Prints
SKU: BG-13248-1, BG-13248-2
Price: 4140 USD
Availability: InStock

$4,140

€3,700 · dollar price at today's exchange rate

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

Date: 1805
Kind: Views & Engravings
Size: 53.8 × 36 cm (21.2 × 14.2 in)
Condition: Good. A few spots due to aging but otherwise fine. These two framed on the wall will look stunning. Please study image carefully. The prints are sold without a frame.
Period: The Early Republic
Places: South America
Reference: BG-13248-1, BG-13248-2

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

Two aracaris, the toucans of the South American forests, in color-printed stipple engravings finished by hand, from the first edition of Francois Levaillant's Histoire naturelle des oiseaux de paradis et des rolliers, suivie de celle des toucans et des barbus, published in Paris between 1801 and 1806. The two sheets are lettered "L'Aracari Verd male" (numbered 16) and "L'Aracari Azara", and each is drawn by Auguste Barraband and engraved by Barriere and Peree.

The left sheet shows the green aracari (Pteroglossus viridis) perched on a gnarled branch with its heavy bill, black head, green back and wings, yellow breast and red patch at the rump. The right sheet shows the ivory-billed aracari, named for the naturalist Felix de Azara, with a pale bill, chestnut head, a red band across the breast, black belly marking and a long green tail. Both birds are set on a bare branch against a plain ground with no background, a hallmark of Barraband's style.

The green aracari lives in the lowland forests of the Guiana Shield and the northeastern Amazon basin, and the ivory-billed aracari ranges across Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela. Levaillant's work, cited by Nissen as IVB 559, is among the most comprehensive on the toucans.

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