PHILADELPHIA (AP) – One of the world's rarest and most valuable books is out of the vault and on public view as part of an unusual daily ritual at the oldest natural history museum in the United States.
Every weekday at 3:15 p.m., a white-gloved staff member of the Academy of Natural Sciences lifts the locked protective cover from 19th century naturalist John James Audubon's influential book, The Birds of America, and turns a double elephant folio linen-backed page to reveal the bird of the day. More than 180 years after Audubon created the life-size illustrations that now link his name with ornithology, their vibrant watercolors and fine details are still remarkable.
Full article here. View the birds being unveiled day by day.
Full article here. View the birds being unveiled day by day.
3 comments:
Rosemary,
I thought I read over the weekend that an First Edition of one of the Audubon books sold at auction for $3.8 million. Wow. Nice that we, the public, can still see some of the wonder of these images.
Karen
Rosemary, I would love to see that book in person.Amazing. You have the best pictures. Smiles, Susie
It would be wonderful to zip into that museum daily to see the page turning and view Audubon's magnificent bird/birds for the day.
We have a restaurant close by that has some extremely nice reproductions of Mr Audubon's work hanging in their Colonial Dining room. They are really beautiful but not as great as seeing the real thing.
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