birds

Pauline de Courcelles Knip (1781-1851) was a bird artist in Paris who had studied under the famed French artist Jacques Barraband.  She appropriated ornithologist Coenraad Temminck’s work on the pigeon family as text for her remarkable illustrations of pigeons.  These 147 folio plates are the richest and most delicate illustrations of this group of birds ever produced.  Printed in colors and finished by hand, the 87 engraved plates in volume 1 were first published in parts in 1809-1811 and then, reissued in 1838 (as in this copy) when the second volume began appearing.