Audubon Aquatint, Brown Headed Nuthatch

AUDUBON, John James (1785 - 1851).
Brown Headed Nuthatch, Plate 125.
Aquatint engraving with original hand color.
London: Robert Havell, 1827-1838.
39 1/2" x 26 1/2" sheet.

Comparables: Arader Galleries, 2022 - $1,500; Christie's, 1982 - $1,210.

Provenance: John Vickers Painter's Deckled Collection, with full uncut margins.

"Actively and most diligently employed is this little rover ever found in our pine woodlands of the Southern Districts, where it resides all the year, and beyond which it seldom extends, few being ever seen to the eastward of Maryland. Those large tracts of sandy soil that occupy the greater portion of the Floridas, Georgia, and the Carolinas, appear to suit its habits best. It is rather rare in Louisiana, and none go so far as Kentucky. It is the smallest species of Nuthatch as yet found in the United States. Its notes are several octaves above those of the White-bellied Nuthatch, more shrill, and at least one and a half above those of its northern cousin, the Red-bellied." - (Audubon's Ornithological Biography, 1831).