The Pileated Woodpecker
Princeton Audubon Double Elephant Edition •Double elephant (life size - 26 1/4 x 39 1/4) •Limited edition of 1500. •Pencil-numbered and embossed with the Princeton Audubon Limited seal. •Up to 11 color plates used. •Specially developed fade-proof inks. Absolute color fidelity to the actual original. •Printed on a 300 line. •Very heavy archival paper which is recommended by the Library of Congress for archives and is specially toned to match the actual color of the antique originals. •Registered to purchaser. •As permanently displayed at The Royal Society of London, to which Audubon belonged as a Fellow.
About the image itself ...
Next to the rare ivory-billed, the pileated is the largest of all North American woodpeckers. This plate, a combination of pencil, ink, watercolor, and tempera, is based on a painting probably executed in 1829 at Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania, and considered to be one of Audubon’s finest works.
He wrote, “When followed [the pileated woodpecker] always alights on the tallest branches or trunks of trees, removes to the side farthest off, from which it every moment peeps, as it watches you progress in silence.” Audubon also wrote: “The observation of many years has convinced me, that Woodpeckers of all sorts have the bill longer when just fledged than at any future period of their life, and that through use it becomes not only shorter, but also much harder, stronger, and sharper.”
