Audubon Aquatint, Orchard Oriole

AUDUBON, John James (1785 - 1851).
Orchard Oriole, Plate 42.
Aquatint engraving with original hand color.
London: Robert Havell, 1827-1838.
39" x 26 1/2" sheet.

Comparables: Arader Galleries, 2023 - $15,000; Arader Galleries, 2019 - $12,500.

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

"Yet the garb with which it is ultimately to be covered requires another return of spring before it is completed, after which it remains as exhibited in the adult male, represented in the plate. These extraordinary changes are quite sufficient of themselves to lead naturalists abroad into error, as they give rise to singular arguments even with some persons in America, who maintain that the differences of colour are indicative of different species. But, since the habits of these birds under all these singular changes of plumage are ascertained to be precisely the same, the argument no longer holds good. I shall now endeavour to describe these habits with all the accuracy supplied by long observation." - (Audubon's Ornithological Biography, 1831).