Lot Essay
Jacques Barraband is justly celebrated as the finest ornithological artist of his time. Drawings of flowers, insects and birds make up the majority of the artist’s graphic work. His most important achievement was a series of more than three-hundred drawings in watercolor and bodycolor executed to illustrate François Levaillant’s monumental works of natural history and birds. This elegant drawing of an emerald parakeet was published in Le Vaillant’s monumental Histoire naturelle des perroquets of 1801-1805.