Happy Thanksgiving! This wild turkey is the first plate in the first volume of John James Audubon’s monumental Birds of America (1827-1838), which includes 435 hand-colored prints that illustrated every extant bird species in North America. The wild turkey was one of Audubon’s favorite subjects and the largest species in the publication.
Audubon pioneered wildlife illustration by modeling his imagery after real, life-size specimens, which resulted in a vivid and lifelike quality. Birds of America is also remarkable for its size and weight; each sheet measures nearly 40 by 29 inches, and each of the four volumes weighs more than forty pounds. This chromolithograph comes from a rare later edition printed after Audubon’s lifetime, but it still shows his hallmark approach in the careful delineation of individual feathers and convincing naturalism of the turkey’s natural habitat.
Posted by Margarita Karasoulas
