Scarlet Macaw with Parakeets, Brazilian Bird Print, Descourtilz, 1944

Scarlet macaw with parakeets print after Descourtilz, Estampa 7 of the Ornitologia Brasileira, published in Rio de Janeiro in 1944 and printed in color by offset from Jean-Théodore Descourtilz's own painting.

A scarlet macaw perches upright at the top of the composition, its head, back and breast a bright red, the wing coverts banded in yellow and green before giving way to blue flight feathers, the long tail blue above and red beneath, the face bare and white, the heavy bill pale horn above and dark below. Beneath it, suspended head-down from the same branch and gripping it with one foot, a smaller green parrot shows a band of yellow across the back of the neck and a touch of blue at the wing; only its underside and folded wing are fully visible in this inverted pose. The two birds share a single stripped branch rendered in a few economical strokes of brown, set against plain paper with no further landscape.

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 scarlet macaw with parakeets 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, a faint surface crease in the lower right and light edge wear; there are a few faint marks on the image panel. Please review the images for further condition details.