Provenance: Provenance: Private Collection, Paris

ABOUT THE WORK

These hand-colored images come from the famous set of volumes Buffon-Histoire Naturelle Des Oiseaux edited by Georges Louis Leclerc and Comte de Buffon, an Intendant du Jardin des Plantes du Roi (head of the royal botanical gardens) under Louis XV. This was initially planned to be part of Buffon’s extensive natural history of the world, the Histoire Naturelle, Générale et Particulière, which began in 1749. It then became an independent set published from 1771-86, with handcolored plates engraved by François-Nicolas Martinet, a French engineer, draftsman, and naturalist best remembered as an engraver, particularly specializing in engraving birds profiled in its respective habitats. The featured 30 extraordinary hand-colored pieces of Philippine birds are marked by yellow borders and a closeup perspective. Each bears a title under each bird, either saying after the name of the bird “des (from) Philippines” or mentioning the Philippine island where the bird was identified. The thick, creamy chain-lined handmade paper has strong plate marks and crown watermarks within. Martinet has engraved the plates for various important works on natural history, especially ornithology. He illustrated many of the plays and operas by the luminaries of the day such as Voltaire, also drawing and engraving landscapes, portraits of notables and scenes of Versailles. Buffon, one of the preeminent scientists and mathematicians of the late 18th century, was noted by Charles Darwin as “the first author who in modern times has treated it [evolution] in a scientific spirit.”