Nelicourvi Weaver with Hanging Nest, Antique Madagascar Plate, 1806

Plate 109 of Sonnerat's Voyage aux Indes Orientales et a la Chine is an original antique engraving of the nelicourvi weaver of Madagascar shown with its woven hanging nest, the bird clinging to the entrance tube below the globe of the nest. Beneath the image the sheet is lettered Le Nélicourvi de Madagascar., with P. Sonnerat pinx. at the lower left and J. J. Avril sculp. at the lower right, and the plate number 109 at the upper right.

Pierre Sonnerat published his Voyage aux Indes Orientales et a la Chine in Paris in 1782, and the plates were reissued in this separate folio volume by Dentu in 1806 under the title Collection de planches pour servir au Voyage aux Indes Orientales et a la Chine. Every image was drawn by Sonnerat himself during the voyage he made for the French crown between 1774 and 1781 and then cut on copper by the Paris engravers who worked for him. It is an original copperplate engraving, printed from the intaglio plate onto laid paper. The engraved plate number stands at the upper right, the artist and engraver credits run along the foot of the image and the caption is lettered beneath. The sheet is uncolored, as the plate volume was issued.

The bird plates run for nearly thirty sheets through the middle of the volume and cover the Coromandel and Malabar coasts, Gingi and Pondicherry, Malacca, China, Madagascar and the Cape. Each bird is drawn at the full height of the plate against a plain ground, usually on a branch or a rock, with the plumage worked up line by line in the engraving. Sonnerat is remembered in the names of the things he found. The mangrove genus Sonneratia carries his name, so does the gray junglefowl Gallus sonneratii, and the botanical author abbreviation Sonn. stands for him. He was the first to put the name aye-aye into print, and the name indri entered European use through him as well. The plates in this volume are the record of that work.

Noticeable uneven toning. Marked handling soiling along all four edges. Scattered light foxing in the margin. Slight wear at the bottom right corner. Minor edge wear, shallow nicks along the right.

This is an original antique print, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed.