A rare complete set of four antique prints showing in great detail the famous Twelve Wired Bird of Paradise, one young male and two male adults . Published in Paris France in the year 1835 (first edition) in "Histoire Naturelle Des Oiseaux De Paradis" (Natural History Of Birds Of Paradise), the first and most comprehensive work on birds of paradise entitled until John Gould's great monograph started appearing 20 years later. By René Primevère LESSON (1794-1849), a surgeon, pharmacist, naturalist on the round-the-world scientific voyage of the corvette La Coquille (1822-1825), led by Jules-Sébastien-César Dumont D'URVILLE (1790-1842) and Louis-Isidore DUPERREY (1786-1865).
The twelve-wired bird-of-paradise (Seleucidis melanoleucus) is a medium-sized, approximately 33 cm long, velvet black and yellow bird-of-paradise. The male has a red iris, long black bill and rich yellow plumes along his flanks. From the rear of these plumes emerge twelve blackish, wire-like filaments, which bend back near their bases to sweep forward over the bird's hindquarters. The female is a brown bird with black-barred buffy underparts. Their feet are strong, large-clawed and pink in color. They are found in flat lowlands and swamp forests, particularly throughout New Guinea and Salawati Island, Indonesia.
The display dance of the Twelve-wired bird of paradise is called “Wire-wipe Display” and it is performed by males to attract females by showing their flank plumes and bare pigmented thighs. Males use their 12 flank plume ‘wires’ to make contact with the female by brushing across the female's face and foreparts.
The sole representative of the monotypic genus Seleucidis, the twelve-wired bird-of-paradise is a bird of lowland forests. The male displays on an exposed vertical perch with his breast-shield flared. Their diet consists mainly of fruits and arthropods in addition to frogs, insects, and nectar.
LESSON studied these birds in their natural habitat during the expedition and was the first European to observe birds of paradise alive in the wild and was the first to describe a Bird of Paradise in flight when the voyage visited New Guinea in 1824. He brought back numerous specimens from the Australia, Moluccas and New Guinea. The voyage concentrated on the exploration of the Pacific Ocean, Australia, New Zealand, Oceania, Polynesia and South America. His classic monograph on these birds includes a synopsis of species with descriptions and synonymies and a treatment of each, at least 4 of which were new to European science.
A hand-finished engraved plate, heightened with gum arabic by Paul Louis OUDART (1796-1860) and Jean Gabriel PRÊTRE (1768-1849). Each illustration is numbered and signed by the illustrators. Like Redouté, OUDART was a pupil of the celebrated Dutch master Gerard van Spaendonck, and 'one of the outstanding French illustrators and bird painters' (Jackson op. cit p.382). He began exhibiting ornithological paintings at the Salon in 1819. PRÊTRE, worked at Museum d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris and provided the plates for many of the important French natural history works published in the first half of the 19th century: as Anker notes, 'these works were illustrated in accordance with the highest requirements of the time by artists such as J.G. Prêtre'.
Colour-printed engraving with hand-colouring, this print effortlessly captures the exotic beauty of one of the most spectacular of all Birds of Paradise. These almost 200 year old prints are much sought after by collectors of these amazing birds and very suitable for framing.
