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TRAVIÈS, Edouard (1809-1865)
European Kestrel (Falco tinnunculus), facing right `1./ La Crécerelle (Buffon) 2/3 nat./ Falco tinnunculus (Linnè)./ Europe'
Paris & London: Ledot ainé & E. Gambart & Co, April 1857. Lithograph, coloured by hand, by Traviès, printed by Becquet of Paris. Sheet size: 23 1/8 x 16 1/2 inches.
A fine lithograph by one of the greatest ornithological artists of the 19th century, from his finest work 'Les Oiseaux Les Plus Remarquables.'
This dramatic scene shows a male Kestrel battling with a grass snake amongst the ivy on top of an old wall, a pine tree behind. Uniquely, Traviès produced two versions of this plate: the present image, and then a slightly smaller version with the scene reversed. The two versions have different printers and publishers.
The male Kestrel can be identified by the blue-gray head and a tail with a black tip which develop when they are a year old, the females remain a fawn and black colour. This scene is unusual, and the Kestrel would not have attacked the snake as prey: the usual diet of the Kestrel is beetles, worms and the occasional small mouse.
Edouard Traviès was the first artist to successfully capture the character of individual birds. This together with the wealth of detail in the backgrounds, give great charm to his images and lift them above mere ornithological illustration, into the realm of fine ornithological art.
Traviès was born in Doullens in the Somme district of France in March 1809, the younger brother of the caricaturist Charles Joseph Traviès de Villier (1804-1859). Throughout his career he concentrated on natural history subjects, both in watercolour (he exhibited regularly at the Paris Salon between 1831 and 1866) and lithography, as here. Unlike a number of his contemporaries, he was an artist both with the brush and on stone, and the present lithograph is his own work. It comes from what is undoubtedly his greatest published work: 'Les Oiseaux Les Plus Remarquables par leurs formes et leurs coleurs. Scenes variees de leurs moeurs & de leur habitudes...' published simultaneously in Paris and London circa 1857.
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#3560 $2,500.00 
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© 2002-2005 Donald A. Heald
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