What can surpass a Princeton? Another Princeton. This is a very special limited edition printing (50) of our original Audubon Havell Snowy Owl, plate 121. This exceptional print measures 24 3/4 x 38 1/4 inches. Only 50 were ever printed, with most being made available to institutions. Only five remain and we are making these available to collectors.
This portrait was based on a composition probably painted in 1829 on the East coast. Audubon gave these birds one of the only nocturnal setting found in The Birds of America. He used pencil to portray the owl's soft, downy feathers. The breeding ground of the magnificent snowy owl lies across northern Alaska and Canada, where the lemming is its staple food, supplemented by ptarmigan, fish and hare. A persistent hunter, it spends much time on lookouts such as banks, boulders, knolls, and dunes along the sea. Periodic epidemics decimate the lemmings and seem to account for the bird's southward flight, which gives Stateside birders a chance to see this large, white inhabitant of the tundra.
