Nicolas Robert (1614-1685) (artist and engraver)
Bird Prints
from Collection d'oiseaux les plus rares gravés et dessinés d'aprés
nature...l'histoire naturelle et raisonnée des différens oiseaux qui
habitent le globe ... traduite du Latin de Jonston ... de laquelle on
a fait précéder l'Histoire particuliére des oiseaux de la Ménagerie
du Roi...
[Collection of the Most Rare Birds Drawn and Engraved From Life, A Natural
and Rational History of the Different Birds that Inhabit the Globe...translated
from Latin by Jonston..from the Menagerie of the King]
Paris: L.C. Desnos, 1773-1774
Engravings with later hand-coloring
12.5 x 20 inches, sheet
9 x 12.75 inches, platemark
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Bird Prints
Nicolas Robert
Nicolas Robert
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Aquila, Aigle; Accipiter Stellaris Autour Plate I [Eagle and Goshawk]
|
Struthocamelus Autruche; Phenicopteros, Plate VIII [Ostrich and Flamingoes] |
Pauo siue Cauda Chinensis, Griie Bolearique, Plate Number: XII |
Ciconia, Cigogne, Plate XIII [Stork] |
Egrette; Canart tres rare; Berte, Plate XVI [Egret, Very Rare Duck, and Berte] |
Monstre; Petit Pie du Bresil; Merulae congener, Merle du Bresil, Cotubris; Garrulus Indicus Caeruleus, Geay d'Inde, Plate XX [Monster (two-headed bird), Small Brazilian Magpie, Brazilian Blackbird, Cotubris and Indian Blue Jay] |
Puffinus; Glaucuim Minus, petit Morillon; Anaticula fera, Canette Sauvage, Plate XXI [Puffin and Small Ducks] |
Plongeon, Petite espece de Heron; Merganser Cyrrhatus, Merle pennache; Mergus Marinus Tessetatus, Plongeon de Mer Echiquete, Plate XXIII [Diving Birds: Small Species of Heron, Black Merganser, Checkered Sea Diver] |
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Finely-executed prints of birds after Nicolas Robert from an 18th-century reissue of two 17th-century natural history works. The reissue combined Robert's prints on the birds of the royal menagerie at Versailles, originally published in 1676, with a French edition of John Jonston's 1650 work on birds, taken from a section of Theatrum Universale Omnium Animalium. The prints depict birds of prey, waterfowl, songbirds and tropical species. The entire set originally contained 23 plates by Robert and 62 by Jonston. Jonston's earlier work was translated from Latin and the descriptions of birds expanded. The names of the birds are given in Latin and French in the Robert plates, and sometimes also in other European languages in the Jonston plates. The Robert and Jonston reissue was published as an accompaniment to a new edition of plates by natural history illustrator Maria Sibylla Merian.
Nicolas Robert was a French watercolorist, draftsman and printmaker, widely regarded as the most accomplished botanical artist of the 17th century. The son of an innkeeper, he made his way to Italy, where he produced his first great work, a unique album of floral paintings called the Guirlande de Julie in 1641, which established his reputation as an artist. In 1650, Gaston d'Orléans, brother of Louis XIII commissioned a set of paintings on vellum of the birds and flowers of his menagerie and botanical garden at the Château of Blois. Over the next decade he filled five large folio volumes. Robert was appointed painter to the King by Gaston's nephew, King Louis XIV, in 1664, documenting the royal gardens. The 700 original natural history paintings he produced for Gaston d'Orléans and the royal collection became the nucleus of the famous Vélins du Muséum collection of natural history studies now in the library of the Musée National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris. His other crowning achievement were the 39 plates he produced for Dionys Dodart's Mémoires pour servir à L'Histoire des Plantes, a large folio published by the Royal Press, a landmark in the history of botanical illustration.
References:
Blunt, Wilfred and Stearn, William T. The Art of Botanical Illustration. Antique Collectors' Club Ltd: Woodbridge, Suffolk: 1994. pp. 114-122.
"Nicolas Robert." The Grove Dictionary of Art. New York: Macmillan. 2000. Artnet.com. http://www.artnet.com/library/07/0723/T072368.asp (19 June 2003).
Nicolas Robert was a French watercolorist, draftsman and printmaker, widely regarded as the most accomplished botanical artist of the 17th century. The son of an innkeeper, he made his way to Italy, where he produced his first great work, a unique album of floral paintings called the Guirlande de Julie in 1641, which established his reputation as an artist. In 1650, Gaston d'Orléans, brother of Louis XIII commissioned a set of paintings on vellum of the birds and flowers of his menagerie and botanical garden at the Château of Blois. Over the next decade he filled five large folio volumes. Robert was appointed painter to the King by Gaston's nephew, King Louis XIV, in 1664, documenting the royal gardens. The 700 original natural history paintings he produced for Gaston d'Orléans and the royal collection became the nucleus of the famous Vélins du Muséum collection of natural history studies now in the library of the Musée National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris. His other crowning achievement were the 39 plates he produced for Dionys Dodart's Mémoires pour servir à L'Histoire des Plantes, a large folio published by the Royal Press, a landmark in the history of botanical illustration.
References:
Blunt, Wilfred and Stearn, William T. The Art of Botanical Illustration. Antique Collectors' Club Ltd: Woodbridge, Suffolk: 1994. pp. 114-122.
"Nicolas Robert." The Grove Dictionary of Art. New York: Macmillan. 2000. Artnet.com. http://www.artnet.com/library/07/0723/T072368.asp (19 June 2003).