Slender Billed Guillemot

Work on Paper

-

DePaul Art Museum

Name/Title

Slender Billed Guillemot

Entry/Object ID

5773

Description

Vignette of two birds sitting on a grassy cliff looking over water. Bird on the left is brown and black, bird on the right is black and white.

Context

John J. Audubon’s (1785-1851) book ‘Birds of America’ was originally printed with “Double Elephant folio” engravings, meaning 435 life size images of North American birds. Between 1840 and 1869, several editions of a smaller (“octavo”) version of the book were printed. The prints found in DePaul’s collection are from this later era, and were printed by J.T. Bowen in Philadelphia. Bowen used a “camera lucida” to project the large engravings on lithographic stone which was then hand drawn and hand painted using watercolors. These smaller sized books made Audubon’s work accessible to a wider audience, and helped his art gain the reputation it still holds today.

Acquisition

Notes

Collection of DePaul Art Museum

Made/Created

Artist

Audubon, John J.

Notes

Creation Date: 1840-1869

Lexicon

Getty AAT

Concept

birds (motifs), motifs, design elements (attributes)

Hierarchy Name

Design Elements (hierarchy name)

Facet

Physical Attributes Facet

LOC Thesaurus for Graphic Materials

Birds

Legacy Lexicon

Class

WORKS ON PAPER