The Birds of America, by John James Audubon

Holocaust history raises important questions about what Europeans could have done to stop the rise of Nazism in Germany and its assault on Europe’s Jews. Questions also must be asked of the international community, including the United States. What did the US government and the American people know about the threats posed by Nazi Germany? What responses were possible? And when? This exhibition examines the motives, pressures, and fears that shaped Americans’ responses to Nazism, war, and genocide.

Full Image

Caption on plate: Booby Gannet Drawn by John James Audubon, engraved by Robert Havell. This bird was painted in the Dry Tortugas on May 14, 1832. Lehman's background is possibly Indian Key.

Full Image

Brown Pelican This mature Brown Pelican was probably painted in the Florida Keys in April or May, 1832. Lehman drew the red mangrove branch.

Full Image

PRINTS BY JOHN JAMES AUDUBON

Pelicans and Allies

Full Image

This mature Brown Pelican was probably painted in the Florida Keys in April or May, 1832. Lehman drew the red mangrove branch.

Full Image

Double-crested Cormorant. Caption on plate: Florida Cormorant

Full Image

This bird was painted in the Dry Tortugas on May 14, 1832. Lehman's background is possibly Indian Key. First Edition Print

Full Image

Caption on print: Frigate Pelican. This bird was painted in Key West in May, 1832.

Full Image

Egrets and Herons

Caption on plate: Louisiana Heron “On the 29th of April, while wading around a beautiful key of the Floridas, in search of certain crustaceous animals called the sea Crayfish [Florida lobster], my party and I suddenly came upon one of the breeding places of the Louisiana Heron.” This bird was painted the same day. Lehman’s background is said to be of a Florida Key. It better resembles the land around the Bulow plantation in northeast Florida.

Full Image

Caption on print: Snowy Heron or White Egret. The Snowy Egret was painted in Charleston, probably on March 25, 1832. Lehman painted the rice plantation background. Note the hunter in the right corner.

Full Image

Caption on print: Great White Heron. Audubon painted the Great White Heron near Key West, after a night hunt with James Egan. The background depicts Key West.

Full Image

Caption on print: Purple Heron. Audubon drew the birds and the background in the Florida Keys during April of 1832.

Full Image

Caption on print: Blue Crane. Audubon painted this heron in Charleston in March 1832. Lehman added the landscape of the local countryside.

Full Image

Shorebirds and Waterbirds

Caption on print: Great Marbled Godwit. The standing bird was drawn at Sandy Key on May 31, 1832. The preening bird had previously been drawn in Louisiana in 1821.

Full Image

Audubon believed he saw three of this South American birds once, in Louisiana in 1821. These were probably drawn in England in 1837 from specimens obtained south of the United States. In 1961, Scarlet Ibis from Trinidad were introduced to the Greynolds Park rookery. Since then they have interbred with White Ibis, and pink hybrids are occasionally seen in South Florida.

Full Image

Caption on print: Greenshank. For the background of this print, Audubon used Lehman's 1831 drawing of the Castillo de San Marcos in St. Augustine. Many believe Audubon saw a Greater Yellowlegs rather than a Greenshank. The bird was probably painted in 1835.

Full Image

Roseate Spoonbill Audubon's assistant, George Lehman, drew the background for this print in Florida in 1831 or 1832. Lehman, rather than Audubon, may also have drawn the bird.

Full Image

The Glossy Ibis naturally colonized North America during Audubon's lifetime. George Ord shot the first recorded bird in 1817 near Great Egg Harbor, New Jersey, and Alexander Wilson first described it the same year. Audubon saw Glossy Ibis only once, when he obtained a specimen near St. Augustine on January 16, 1832. The painting upon which the plate is based, however, was done in Charleston during the winter of 1836-37.

Full Image

Gulls and Terns

Caption on print: Cayenne Tern. This bird was painted in the Florida Keys in May 1832.

Full Image

Audubon painted the Sandwich Tern in the Keys on May 26, 1832.

Full Image

While at Indian Key, on April 28, 1832, Audubon and his party shot 38 Roseate Terns. This tern was painted later that day.

Full Image

Caption on print: Noddy Tern. The Brown Noddy was painted on May 11, 1832, on Noddy Key in the Dry Tortugas. Havell's background has no resemblance to the Tortugas and Keys. The eggs

Full Image

From April through August, Sooty and Noddy Terns gather in the hundreds of thousands to breed in the Dry Tortugas. Audubon drew this one on May 10, 1832.

Full Image

Quails, Doves and Pigeons

The White-crowned Pigeon was painted on Indian Key in April 1832. The pigeons had recently arrived from Cuba, where they winter. George Lehman painted the Geiger tree, a tropical plant named for Key West wrecker John H. Geiger. In 1960 the Geiger House was purchased by Mitchell and Frances Wolfson, and restored as a house museum. Renamed the Audubon House, it commemorates Audubon's visit to the Keys. A legend arose when visitors assumed that Audubon stayed there, something the Audubon House does not claim. Audubon actually lived aboard a sailing ship, the Marion.

Full Image

Caption on print: Key West Pigeon. The Key West Quail Dove was painted in Key West on May 6, 1832, from a bird shot by Sargeant Sykes, one of Audubon's local guides. These doves used to migrate between Cuba and the Florida Keys. Audubon saw flocks. Today, the rare sighting of one, as happened in 1987, brings birdwatchers to the Keys from all over the country. The purple flowers in Lehman's background are the railroad-vine. The white flowers are the rubber-vine.

Full Image

Caption on plate: Blue-headed Pigeon. Drawn by John James Audubon, engraved by Robert Havell. Audubon sighted two of these birds on the western side of Key West early in May 1832. This Cuban species has never been seen in Florida since then. George Lehman's background features wild poinsettia.

Full Image

The Zenaida Dove was common enough during Audubon's visit for him to shoot nineteen in an hour. It is now a very rare visitor from the West Indies. These were painted on April 30, the day Audubon left Indian Key for Key West. Lehman painted the pond-apple branch.

Full Image

Other Birds

Caption on print: Hooping Crane. The painting from which this print was made was done in Boston during the winter of 1832-33, using a living crane as the model. Audubon's background is intended to be of Florida sandhills.

Full Image

Audubon painted this tropical bird in Key West in May, 1832. George Lehman's branch is of a seven-year-apple.

Full Image

Caption on print: Gray Tyrant. The Gray Kingbird summers along Florida's coast. This bird was painted in the Florida Keys in April or May of 1832. Lehman added the Australian corkwood-tree in early May.

Full Image

Caption on print: Mangrove Hummingbird. Dr. Strobel sent three male hummingbirds to John Bachman. He then forwarded them to Audubon with two female skins and Maria Martin's painting of a trumpet-creeper. Audubon made the final painting after July 1832. The American Ornithological Union believes all the skins were of birds living in South America, and has not accepted Strobel's sighting as a North American record.

Full Image

Caption on plate: Brazilian Caracara Eagle. After Audubon unsuccessfully hunted a single Caracara for several days, one of his assistants, Lehman or Ward, shot it. This double portrait was made of that bird in St. Augustine on November 27, 1831. This South American species, Mexico's national bird, can be found in the United States only in Florida and Texas.

Full Image

These gulls were painted in St. Augustine on December 8, 1831. Lehman drew the standing immature gull and the raccoon oysters.

Full Image

Caption on print: Common American Swan. Audubon painted this swan in London in 1838. He wanted the yellow water lillies to be named Nymphea leitnernia after Edward F. Leitner, a German botanist killed by Seminoles in 1838.

Full Image

WHAT ARE THE ELEPHANT FOLIO AND OCTOVO EDITION?

Early Editions of John James Audubon Prints

- The First Edition—the Elephant Folio

The Birds of America consist of 435 prints of 457+ species of birds. The prints were issued in sets of five, between 1826 and 1838. Fewer than 175 folios of all 435 prints were completed.

The birds are portrayed life-size on 29 1/2" x 39 1/2" paper. This paper size is called double elephant, from which the first edition of The Birds of America derives its nickname, the double elephant folio.

The London engraver, Robert Havell, etched Audubon's bird portraits and his assistants' paintings of foilage and landscapes onto copper plates. Black and white prints were made from the copper plates. The engravings were then water-colored by hand.

The folio was completed on June 20, 1838, twelve years after the first print had been engraved.

- The Second Edition—the Octavo Edition

Several publications supplemented the textless Birds of America. The Ornithological Biography was written by Audubon and William MacGillivray, and published in five volumes between 1831 and 1839. It describes the behavior of the birds depicted in the engravings, and Audubon’s experiences hunting and observing them. The text of The Ornithological Biography was reprinted in the second edition of The Birds of America between 1840 and 1844. Known as the octavo edition from its size, this smaller version was reprinted eight times between 1856 and 1871. The octavo edition contained 500 hand-colored lithographs on pages measuring 6 1/2 x 10 or 10 3/4 inches.

Full Image

Copied from the Octavo Edition. From Report on the Birds of Pennsylvania, by Benjamin Harry Warren. Harrisburg: E. K. Meyers, 1890. Plate 66. Caption on plate: 1. Pectoral Sandpiper. 2. Florida Gallinule. Audubon's prints have been reproduced often since they were first published. This example combines two pictures from the Octavo Edition into one illustration.

HOW OTHER ARTISTS VIEWED FLORIDA AND CARIBBEAN WILDLIFE

Catesby, Mark, 1683-1749. Acus Maxima, Squammosa, Virdis. [Nuremberg : Paul Johnathan Felssecker, 1777.] This engraving first appeared in The natural history of Carolina, Florida and the Bahamas Island: containing the figures of birds, beasts, fishes, serpents, insects, and plants, Vol. II, by Mark Catesby. Nicholaus Friedrich Eisenberger and Georg Lichtensteger, engravers from Nuremberg, Germany, issued a copy of vol. II of Catesby's work in 1750. Following a sucessful run, the volume was reissued in 1777. This plate is from their book, Piscivim. serpentvm, insectorvm, aliorvmqve nonnvllorvm animalivm nec non plantarvm plantarvm qvarvndam imagines qvas Marcvs Catesby in posterior parte splendidi illivs operis qvo Carolinae, Floridae et Bahamensivm Isvlarvm tradidit historiam natvralem eivsqve appedice descripsit.

Full Image

Catesby, Mark, 1683-1749. Salpa purpurascens variegata & Petimbuabo Brasil. [Nuremberg : Paul Johnathan Felssecker, 1777.] This engraving first appeared in The natural history of Carolina, Florida and the Bahamas Island: containing the figures of birds, beasts, fishes, serpents, insects, and plants, Vol. II, by Mark Catesby. Salpa purpurascens is also know as the Lane-Snapper and Petimbuabo Brasil as the Tobaccopipe-Fish.

Full Image

Catesby, Mark, 1683-1749. Perca marina puncticulata & Perca marina cauda nigra [Nuremberg : Paul Johnathan Felssecker, 1777.] This engraving first appeared in The natural history of Carolina, Florida and the Bahamas Island: containing the figures of birds, beasts, fishes, serpents, insects, and plants, Vol. II, by Mark Catesby.

Full Image

Catesby, Mark, 1683-1749. Turdus Pinnis, branchialibus carens. [Nuremberg : Paul Johnathan Felssecker, 1777.] This engraving first appeared in The natural history of Carolina, Florida and the Bahamas Island: containing the figures of birds, beasts, fishes, serpents, insects, and plants, Vol. II, by Mark Catesby.

Full Image

Muscicapa [and] musa / [engraved by] Thackara & Vallance. Philadelphia? : Thackara & Vallance?, 1798. Clockwise from top left : M. Crinita (Great Crested Flycatcher), M. rubra (Summer Tanager), M. Carolinensis (Grey Catbird), Musa Sapientum (plantain plant), Musa Paradisaica (banana plant). The birds in this plate are copied from engravings in The Natural History of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands, by Mark Catesby. The bird in the center, a Summer Tanager, is colored a drab brown on this plate, but is actually a brilliant scarlet.

Full Image

Gyrinius, geoffraal, gracula ... / [engraved by] Thackara & Vallance. Philadelphia? : Thackara & Vallance?, 1798. Lower left: Grackle. The bird in this plate are copied from engravings in The Natural History of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands, by Mark Catesby. The bird in the center, a Summer Tanager, is colored a drab brown on this plate, but is actually a brilliant scarlet.

Full Image

Natural History Artists who Visited Florida

John James Audubon drews birds from freshly killed specimens or from life, and tried to make them look as life-life as possible. Other eighteenth and early nineteen century artists drew animals that looked either recently dead or stylized.

Mark Catesby

British naturalist Mark Catesby visited the region in beginning in 1722. His drawings were reproduced in The Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands between 1731 and 1743. The prints included birds, fish and other wildlife. Catesby's and Audubon's prints have been reproduced countless times since their publication.

BEGINNINGS

John James Audubon

John James Audubon was born in Santo Domingo, present-day Haiti, in 1785. He grew up in France, where his loving stepmother encouraged his interests in drawing and the outdoors. His father sent him to the United States in 1803 to avoid Napoleon's draft. Over the next 17 years, Audubon unsuccessfully wandered from career to career, and place to place.

In 1820 Audubon began his masterpiece, The Birds of America. From then on, he devoted most of his time to painting birds, with the intent of printing as engravings life-size portraits of all the kinds of birds in the United States.

Unable to secure financial backing in the United States, Audubon went to Europe in 1826. There he found both subscribers and engravers for the project. The first prints were made that same year.

Over the next twelve years, Audubon divided his time between London and America. When abroad, he supervised the engraving and coloring of the prints. In America, he traveled in search of birds to paint.

Audubon returned from England in 1831 to draw new birds for the folio. His first expedition was to the east coast of Florida to find water birds and tropical species. George Lehman, a landscape painter, came to do backgrounds for the bird portraits.

John James Audubon J. J. Audubon, engraved by H. B. Hall, based on a painting by Henry Inman. Engraving from The Life of John James Audubon, the Naturalist, edited by his widow. New York: G. P. Putnams' Sons, 1894.

CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA

Key West

Charleston, South Carolina, proved important for Audubon's Florida journeys, his career, and his personal life. There he met the Reverend John Bachman, who became a life-long friend. Bachman gave him letters of introduction to prominent Key West men, such as Dr. Strobel, that made Audubon's Key West visit more productive.

Audubon first visited Charleston, South Carolina, in 1831 when seeking transportation south to St. Augustine. He returned, by way of Savannah, Georgia, after his St. Augustine adventures, again to find a boat sailing to Florida, this time to the Keys and the Dry Tortugas. When he left the Keys, he returned to Charleston

Full Image

SAINT AUGUSTINE

Saint Augustine Audubon's party arrived in St. Augustine on November 20, 1831. Until March 5, 1832, they hunted birds in northeast Florida. They visited the plantations of General Hernandez, John Bulow (now a state historic site near Ormond Beach), and Colonel Orlando Rees, and explored the Halifax and St. Johns Rivers.

"When the United States purchased the peninsula from the Spanish Government, the representations given of it by Mr. Bartram and other poetical writers, were soon found greatly to exceed the reality."

Full Image

Tricolored Heron - Caption on plate: Louisiana Heron “On the 29th of April, while wading around a beautiful key of the Floridas, in search of certain crustaceous animals called the sea Crayfish [Florida lobster], my party and I suddenly came upon one of the breeding places of the Louisiana Heron.” This bird was painted the same day. Lehman’s background is said to be of a Florida Key. It better resembles the land around the Bulow plantation in northeast Florida.

Full Image

View: Castillo de San Marcos, Saint Augustine, Caption on print: Greenshank. For the background of this print, Audubon used Lehman's 1831 drawing of the Castillo de San Marcos in St. Augustine. Many believe Audubon saw a Greater Yellowlegs rather than a Greenshank. The bird was probably painted in 1835.

Full Image

THE FLORIDA KEYS

Roseate Tern While at Indian Key, on April 28, 1832, Audubon and his party shot 38 Roseate Terns. This tern was painted later that day.

Reddish Egret Caption on print: Purple Heron Audubon drew the birds and the background in the Florida Keys during April of 1832.

Indian Key

Audubon left Charleston aboard the Marion on April 19, 1832. Five days later it passed the Cape Florida Light, and reached Indian Key on April 25, where the cutter remained for a week.

Audubon hired James Egan as a guide. Egan, a Bahamian, had settled on the Miami River around 1800. The land on which the Historical Museum is built belonged to Egan.

FLORIDA BAY

With Egan as guide, Audubon explored Florida Bay, including Sandy Key, a rookery near Cape Sable.

"... seldom have I experienced greater pleasures than when on the Florida Keys, under a burning sun, after pushing my bark for miles over a soapy flat, I have striven all day long, tormented by myraids of insects, to procure a heron new to me, and have at length succeed in my efforts. And then how amply are the labours of the naturalist compensated, when, after observing the wildest and most distrustful birds, in their remote and almost inaccessible breeding places, he returns from his journeys, and relates his adventures to an interested and friendly audience."

Full Image

KEY WEST

Full Image

Magnificent Frigatebird Caption on print: Frigate Pelican. This bird was painted in Key West in May, 1832.

Full Image

The expedition reached Key West on May 4. On arrival, Audubon met Dr. Benjamin Strobel, a friend of John Bachman. Also interested in natural history, Strobel often sent Bachman shells, bird skins and plants. He assisted Audubon during Audubon's stay in Key West.

THE DRY TORTUGAS

Coral and Florida lobster

Between May 10 and 16, 1832, Audubon sailed to, explored, and returned from the Dry Tortugas. While there he drew pelagic and tropical birds. As birds were nesting, his timing was excellent.

Audubon left Key West on board the Marion on May 22. After a stop at Indian Key, he left the Keys for Charleston on May 31.

Full Image

Drawn by John James Audubon, engraved by Robert Havell. This bird was painted in the Dry Tortugas on May 14, 1832. Lehman's background is possibly Indian Key. Second Edition Print

Full Image

ENDINGS

Caption on plate: American Flamingo. Although Audubon saw flamingos in the Florida Keys, he drew none while there. This print is based on a painting he did in London in 1838, from a specimen sent from Cuba.

Scarlet Ibis Audubon believed he saw three of this South American birds once, in Louisiana in 1821. These were probably drawn in England in 1837 from specimens obtained south of the United States. In 1961, Scarlet Ibis from Trinidad were introduced to the Greynolds Park rookery. Since then they have interbred with White Ibis, and pink hybrids are occasionally seen in South Florida.

Audubon was so pleased with his Florida expedition that he planned to return in 1837 to explore the west coast.

"We hope to go with Capn Day or Capn Coste as far as Cape Sable and visit all the Keys ... the Western coast of Floridas before we sail for the Westward." Letter to John Bachman, March 3, 1837.

The outbreak of the Second Seminole War, however, made Florida much too dangerous a destination. The Bulow plantation, where Audubon had stayed in 1831, was destroyed by Seminoles just after Christmas, 1835. Audubon briefly visited Pensacola, but was unsuccessful in arranging for transporation east and south. He followed the Gulf coast west to Texas instead.

REPRODUCTIONS

The digital images on this web site are of materials from the collections of HistoryMiami. They may be downloaded for personal use (e.g., to a home PC, in a school project, etc.), providing credit is given to HistoryMiami. All other uses require prior permission and the payment of appropriate fees, where applicable (e.g., use on another web site, reproduction in a publication, etc.).

Contact the Research Center by email, telephone, fax or letter.Include precise information that will identify the image(s): The complete URL of the page where the image appears, and/or the image number.

Describe the intended use and the kind of reproduction you desire.

Research Center staff will respond promptly with an estimate of costs and time to fill the order. Pre-payment is required. Orders are usually filled within three to four weeks.

Most of the digital imager in this online exhibition were made from 35mm slides that were shot of the prints in HistoryMiami's collection. Therefore, the digital images are of sufficient quality for the web, but not for reproduction in publications.