Tanagers and Cotingas, Brazilian Bird Print, Descourtilz, 1944

Tanagers and cotingas print after Descourtilz, dated 1944 and issued as Estampa 29 of the Ornitologia Brasileira, a color offset print from Jean-Théodore Descourtilz's paintings of Brazilian birds.

Four birds and a spider's web occupy a thorny, leafy branch. At upper left, a bird with a blue body and a dark maroon-red throat patch perches close to the fork of the branch. At upper right, a second bird shows a black head, a yellow-green body and a patch of chestnut brown across the wing. Below and to the right, a third bird has a green back scaled in black over a yellow belly marked with small red spots at the flank. At the bottom of the plate, a fourth and brilliantly red bird, its wingtips dark and its tail red tipped in black, perches near the base of the branch. A spider's web, complete with its maker at the center, is strung between two twigs at the left of the composition, a small naturalistic touch not repeated elsewhere in the volume.

The plate comes from the Ornitologia Brasileira ou História Natural das Aves do Brasil, notáveis por sua plumagem, canto e hábitos, issued in 1944 by Livraria Kosmos Editora of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. First published in French in the 1850s, the work appeared here in its first Portuguese edition, translated by Eurico Santos and limited to 1,315 copies, 1,000 plus 315 numbered. Each of its 48 color offset plates is captioned "Estampa" with its number and mounted on a toned card with a printed green ornamental border.

Descourtilz, a French painter and naturalist who lived from circa 1796 to 1855, traveled to Brazil in the late 1820s and devoted himself to painting its birds. His first work on the birds of Brazil appeared in 1834.

This tanagers and cotingas print after Descourtilz is decorative and strong in color, and works well framed on its own in a study or hallway or hung with other Brazilian bird prints from the same volume.

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.