“Golden Eagle”
The great John James Audubon…
“Golden Eagle” is a watercolor and ink on paper illustration by the French American ornithological illustrator, John James Audubon. Drawn in 1833, it is plate number 181 from his opus, The Birds of America. This plate was engraved, printed, and hand colored with watercolors by R. Havell in 1833.
The scientific name of the Golden Eagle is Aquila chrysaetos. Audubon depicts an adult female Golden Eagle flying over a barren rocky outcrop. She has a Northern Hare clenched in her talons. Blood bleeds from the hare’s eyes. Interestingly, Audubon included a self-portrait in his original drawing that was removed in the final engraving used in the book’s publication.
Audubon wrote a narrative text to accompany the image. In it, he described the preferred habitats of the Golden Eagle and in what locations he had seen it. He described its unique traits, such as its incredibly keen eyes. In detail, he described the eggs of the bird, including the general length, color, and thickness of the shell. Audubon wrote of the sounds the Golden Eagles make during their breeding season, their eating habits, and plumage developments.
Audubon’s work revolutionized naturalist illustration the world over for his detailed, true to life representations of birds that were often engaged in primal survival activities, rather than the stiff poses of the traditional naturalist perspectives. His technique involved hunting the bird, pinning the bird to a board in a life-like position, then quickly sketching before rigor mortis set in. However, the Golden Eagle was rare and difficult for Audubon to find. Instead of finding this specimen in the wild, he had to draw it from a bird that he obtained from the owner of a museum in Boston, Massachusetts.
As “Golden Eagle” is a print that was originally made to order, there are several original printings still in existence. There is one in the collections of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. in the United States, and other copies being sold online on art auction websites.
For more on John James Audubon, please visit his short biography here.
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