Jacques Barraband (1767/8-1809)

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IMPORTANT ORNITHOLOGICAL WATERCOLOURS FROM THE COLLECTION OF MARCEL JEANSON Lots 117-137 JACQUES BARRABAND (C.1767-1809) Jacques Barraband's contribution to ornithological art, can hardly be understated, and he was and is justly celebrated as the finest ornithological artist of his time. Of his life relatively little is known; he was born in 1767 or 1768, the son of a weaver at the Aubusson Factory. He is first mentioned as a pupil of Joseph Malaine (1745-1809, the eminent flowers painter under King Louis XVI), and is known to have worked for the Gobelin Factory and later for the famous porcelain Factory at Sèvres. He executed decorative cycles after designs by Percier and Fontaine, most notably for the dining room commissioned by Emperor Napoleon for the Château de Saint-Cloud. We know that Empress Joséphine bought two of his gouaches of exotic birds at the Salon in 1808, and that she commissioned paintings of specimens in the hot-house and aviary that she had built at Malmaison. Drawings of flowers, insects and birds make up the greater part of Barraband's graphic work. His most important achievement was undoubtedly the series of more than 300 drawings in watercolour and gouache that he executed to illustrate François Levaillant's monumental works of Natural History, the Histoire naturelle des Perroquets, the Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux de Paradis and the Histoire Naturelle des Promérops. This vast undertaking is representative of the ambitions, optimism and academic vigour typical of publishing in France during the Napoleonic period. His drawings are so realistic that it is almost certain that he studied living specimens, some of which are now extinct, and achieved a level of scientific accuracy that has rarely been surpassed. In 1820, Henrich Kuhl commemorated Barraband's scientific and ornithological contribution by naming a newly discovered South American parrot 'Barraband's Parrot' (Psittacus barrabandi). The French names to the following works are taken from the captions to the plates of the original works, but have sometimes been superseded. References to Levaillant's works have been abbreviated in the catalogue description, the full bibliography is set out below: François Levaillant, Histoire naturelle des perroquets. Paris, Levrault, Schoell & Cie, An. IX-XIII (1801-1805), 2 vols. François Levaillant, Histoire naturelle des oiseaux de paradis et des rolliers, suivie de clees des toucans et des barbus. Paris, Denné le jeune & Perlet, [1801-] 1806, 2 vols. François Levaillant, Histoire naturelle des promérops et des guépiers (et des couroucous et touracous), faisant suite à celle des oiseaux de paradis. Paris, Levrault, [1806-] 1807 [-1816 or 1818], 3 vols.

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Jacques Barraband (1767/8-1809)

Le barbu à collier rouge -- Coppersmith Barbet -- Megalaima haemacephala.

signed "Barraband", numbered "n°35", black chalk, pen and watercolour, watercolour and bodycolour, heightened with gum arabic , on light cream paper.

522 x 383 mm.

ENGRAVED -- Levaillant, Barbus, plate 35.

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