Bird of Washington or Great American Sea Eagle (Primary Title)
The Birds of North America (Portfolio Title)
John James Audubon, American, born Haiti, 1785–1851 (Artist)
R. Havell and Son, English, active 1818 - 1838 (Engraver)
R. Havell and Son, English, active 1818 - 1838 (Publisher)
John James Audubon will forever be associated with nature conservancy—particularly the study and preservation of birds. His legacy as America’s foremost bird artist also endures. In the 1810s, he embarked on the extraordinary mission to observe and draw every bird species in the young nation. During an era when interests in art, science, and exploration converged, he traveled extensively to locate each known variety and picture it in actual size and color. Beginning in 1827, the English firm of R. Havell and Son reproduced Audubon’s detailed watercolors as large-folio prints—individually produced through a complex process of engraving, etching, and hand coloring. The ambitious Birds of America series took eleven years to complete and resulted in 435 separate images.
Audubon first spotted this magnificent raptor during a journey on the Upper Mississippi River in 1814. When he later completed his watercolor, on which this engraving is based, he gave the species the name “Bird of Washington.” The émigré naturalist explained his choice:
As the new world gave me birth and liberty, the great man who ensured its independence is next to my heart. . . . He had a nobility of mind. . . . He was brave, so is the Eagle; like it, too, he was the terror of his foes; and his fame, extending from pole to pole, resembles [its] majestic soarings.
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