Antique French de Buffon Bird Engraving, La Grande Veuve, Hand Colored, 18th Century

Period
1770 to 1783, French

Size
9¼ x 11½ inches, framed

A hand colored copperplate engraving of the paradise whydah shown twice on one plate, in full plumage and again in moult, from Buffon's Histoire naturelle, drawn by Jacques de Sève and engraved by C. Baron. Marked pl. 6664.

The upper bird is perched high on a bough with two tail feathers running the full drop of the sheet, far longer than the body that carries them, worked in blue black with a chestnut collar. The lower bird sits on the same tree in the shorter plumage of the moult, so the plate holds one species in two states at once. A rocky outcrop and cloud fill behind them.

The paper has warmed to ivory with scattered foxing through the margins. The frame is painted blue gray with a yellow ochre inner fillet, distressed to bare wood at the corners and along the rails. Sold as found.

Historical Context
Showing the same bird twice, in plumage and out of it, is the most interesting thing on this plate. Eighteenth century illustration normally gave one bird one portrait in its best dress, and seasonal change went into the text if it went anywhere. Drawing the moult puts a fact about the living animal onto the plate, which is the shift Buffon's project was making, from the specimen cabinet toward the behavior of the bird.

Georges-Louis Leclerc, comte de Buffon, ran the Jardin du Roi in Paris and gave the rest of his life to the Histoire naturelle, thirty-six volumes published between 1749 and his death in 1788, with eight more added afterward by his successors. He wrote it in French and aimed it at any educated reader, and the first edition sold out in six weeks and went on into English, German, Swedish, Italian and Russian. The nine volumes on birds were written with Guéneau de Montbeillard, and Jacques de Sève drew close to two thousand plates across the whole work.