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Lot Essay
John James Audubon's life work, The Birds of America, remains today as one of the great achievements of American art and one of the most important documents of natural history. Among the birds depicted in this magnum opus is the Redhead duck (Aythya americana), a diving bird, the male of which has a bright, chestnut-red colored head.
Audubon frequently produced multiple watercolors of the same species of birds, re-working poses and subjects before selecting a composition for the final, engraved image. Of the known extant watercolors of the Redhead, the example in the New-York Historical Society differs in several details from this image, notably by including both the male and the female ducks posed together on land and silhouetted against the sky.
The artist reproduced the Historical Society's version in Birds of America as plate CCCXXII. There, the artist depicts only the more colorful male and concentrates on the form and plumage of the bird. Painting with his richly detailed technique, combining several media, including pencil lines to precisely define the feathers, the artist produces here a tour de force of his art, and a brilliant depiction of an American waterbird.
Audubon frequently produced multiple watercolors of the same species of birds, re-working poses and subjects before selecting a composition for the final, engraved image. Of the known extant watercolors of the Redhead, the example in the New-York Historical Society differs in several details from this image, notably by including both the male and the female ducks posed together on land and silhouetted against the sky.
The artist reproduced the Historical Society's version in Birds of America as plate CCCXXII. There, the artist depicts only the more colorful male and concentrates on the form and plumage of the bird. Painting with his richly detailed technique, combining several media, including pencil lines to precisely define the feathers, the artist produces here a tour de force of his art, and a brilliant depiction of an American waterbird.