A hand coloured antique print entitled La Soubuse.
From ‘Histoire Naturelle Des Oiseaux’ by George-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon.
Published by L’Imprimerie Royale, Paris between 1770 and 1786.
Engraved by C. Laron.
36 volumes of Histoire Naturelle were published during the author’s lifetime with a further eight being produced after his death by Leclerc’s friend Bernard Germain de Lacépède.
Born a man of modest circumstance George-Louis Leclerc secured a massive inheritance from his godfather. With this he travelled to Paris where, after some study, he earned a position as Head of Le Jardin du Roi, a major botanical garden in the city. Here he started his studies of plants and animals in earnest, collecting vast numbers of botanical and zoological specimens and turning the park into an institute of research.
La Soubuse is a Buzzard. A common and very successful bird in Europe it’s range spreads to China, Siberia and Mongolia. An opportunistic predator it feeds mainly on small animals such as voles. If it lives in a cold climate it migrates to Africa for the winter.
Size: 27 x 19.5 cms or 10 3/4 x 7 5/8 inches.
Size of the coloured part of the engraving: 19.7 x 15.2 cms or 7 3/4 x 6 inches.
Condition:Near Fine. The coloured part of the engraving is clean and fresh. The white surround is lightly foxed at the edges with faint black marks. The paper upon which the image has been printed is lightly creased and uneven at the edges as was usual at the time. There are pieces of paper adhered to the reverse that I assume might once have been used to fix the engraving to a mount.
