BLOGGER TEMPLATES AND TWITTER BACKGROUNDS

Thursday, December 16, 2010

BIRDS OF AMERICA - WORLD'S MOST EXPENSIVE BOOK

Birds of America was first published as a series of sections between 1827 and 1838. Only 119 copies were published of which fewer than a dozen are in private hands. Each of the printed book were colored by hand, and it was an extremely laborious process. Even by today's standards, the vividness of its illustrations of birds is extraordinary but when it was being released in the 1830s it was mindboggling.

Audubon employed a rather shocking technique to produce the book. He hunted the birds down and shot them before propping them up on wires to paint. Each drawing would take about 60 hours to complete. Ironically, many of his beautifully rendered subjects are now extinct, such as the Carolina Parakeet, Passenger Pigeon, Labrador Duck, Great Auk, Esquimaux Curlew, and Pinnated Grouse.








































































































































































































9 comments:

Jeevan said...

Interesting and amazing how these paintings still exists with the same contrast and colors. Really a worth and disturbing work done behind it.

Anonymous said...

बहुत सुन्दर छायांकन है!

Anonymous said...

मेरा नया मेल है-
rcshashtri@uchcharan.com

Trotter said...

Fabulous book!!

Margaret Cloud said...

Thank you for sharing this book with us. What beautiful pictures, my favorite is the Swan. Have a nice week.

Anonymous said...

The pictures are so amazing. The details are so clear I can only image how beautiful it will be in person.

Sathish Chandrasekaran (சதீஷ் சந்திரசேகரன்) said...

Glad he stopped with birds...

Kunwar Kusumesh said...

really,interesting and amazing photos.

Rahul Singh said...

really amazing and beautiful.