Audubon Aquatint Pinnated Grous

Audubon, John James (1785-1851).
Pinnated Grous, Plate 186.
Aquatint engraving with original hand color.
London: Robert Havell, 1827-1838.
24 3/4" x 37 1/4" sheet, 37" x 49 1/2" framed.
Comparable: Guernsey's, 2013 - $12,200.
"When I first removed to Kentucky, the Pinnated Grouse were so abundant,
that they were held in no higher estimation as food than the most common
flesh, and no "hunter of Kentucky" deigned to shoot them. They were, in
fact, looked upon with more abhorrence than the Crows are at present
in Massachusetts and Maine, on account of the mischief they committed
among the fruit trees of the orchards during winter, when they fed on their
buds, or while in the spring months they picked up the grain in the fields."
- Audubon's ornithological biography, 1831.