Purple-Throated and Other Cotingas, Brazilian Bird Print, Descourtilz, 1944

Purple-throated and swallow-tailed cotingas print after Descourtilz, taken from the 1944 Rio de Janeiro edition of the Ornitologia Brasileira, where it appears as Estampa 28, printed in color by offset.

Four birds occupy a branching perch, arranged in two pairs. At the top, a bird with glossy black plumage overall shows a bright yellow patch at the flank and a pale orange bill, its tail fanned in typical songbird fashion. Below and to the left, a second bird has a deep maroon-purple head, throat and back over a pale gray-white belly, its tail tipped in black over a soft rose-pink base. To the right, a third bird is colored in violet-blue with black scaling across the back and wing, while a fourth bird at lower right shows a similar purple-red throat and head over a blue-gray, black-scaled body. The four birds are set close together on a simple forked branch rendered in a few unbroken strokes of brown, against plain toned paper.

The Ornitologia Brasileira ou História Natural das Aves do Brasil, notáveis por sua plumagem, canto e hábitos was published by Livraria Kosmos Editora in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo in 1944: the first Portuguese edition, translated by Eurico Santos, of a work first published in French in the 1850s, limited to 1,315 copies (1,000 plus 315 numbered). Its 48 color offset plates reproduce Descourtilz's own paintings of Brazilian birds, each captioned "Estampa" with its number and mounted on a toned card within a printed green ornamental border.

The artist, Jean-Théodore Descourtilz (circa 1796 to 1855), was a French painter and naturalist. He traveled to Brazil in the late 1820s, devoted himself to painting its birds, and published his first work on the birds of Brazil in 1834.

Decorative and strong in color, this purple-throated and swallow-tailed cotingas print after Descourtilz would frame well for a study, library or garden room, or sit alongside other Brazilian bird prints in a natural history collection.

This plate is in good condition for its age. The mount shows ordinary age toning, with a few small spots and light wear to the edges; the image itself is clean. Please review the images for further condition details.