Subcategories

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  Mathews Australia

  Curated Highlights from The Birds of Australia

  Selected hand-coloured bird engravings from Gregory M. Mathews’ celebrated ornithological work.

  Red-collared Lorikeet — Antique Bird Print

  Western Purple Kingfisher — Antique Bird Print

  Chestnut-breasted Cuckoo — Antique Bird Print

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  Mathews – The Birds of Australia: Premium Ornithological Plates

  Between 1910 and 1927, Gregory M. Mathews produced one of the most ambitious ornithological undertakings of the modern era: The Birds of Australia. This monumental work, printed in limited numbers and illustrated by masters such as Roland Green, H. Goodchild, J.G. Keulemans and Henrik Grönvold, remains one of the high points of natural history publishing.

  Ideal for interiors that value sophistication and natural elegance, these original plates offer a timeless way to bring Australia’s unique avifauna into contemporary spaces. Each print is a refined intersection of scientific accuracy, delicate composition and luminous hand-colouring.

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  Buy with Confidence

  • Original antique prints — carefully selected and professionally preserved
  • Individually curated — each piece is unique and never a reproduction
  • Worldwide delivery via UPS / DHL Premium Express — free above €300
  • No customs duties or taxes worldwide — no delays, no extra charges upon delivery
  • Secure, professional packaging for safe international delivery
  • Returns accepted — a smooth, worry-free experience

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  Heritage Stories

  Explore the artists behind these landmark ornithological plates — their techniques, field experience and the heritage that shaped early 20th-century bird illustration.

  Gregory M. Mathews
  Roland Green
  H. Goodchild
  J.G. Keulemans
  Henrik Grönvold

  Looking for original Mathews bird prints and antique ornithological plates to enrich your home, office or studio? Explore premium hand-coloured engravings from The Birds of Australia — collectible natural history artworks where scientific precision and interior elegance meet.

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  Prêtre Birds

  Curated Highlights from the Collection

  Selected original bird engravings from the Dizionario di Scienze Naturali.

  Buceros rhinoceros — Rhinoceros Hornbill

  Kingfishers — Exotic River Birds

  Green-tailed Jacamar

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  Prêtre – Birds from the Dizionario di Scienze Naturali

  Discover our selection of original hand-coloured engravings of birds, illustrated by Pierre Antoine Prêtre for the Dizionario di Scienze Naturali published in Florence in the 19th century. Each plate blends scientific observation with a refined sense of composition, turning zoological description into visual poetry.

  These rare artworks feature exotic and European birds captured with exquisite detail and vivid colours. Some engravings even present subtle touches of metallic gold on the feathers, enhancing their luminosity and decorative presence on the page.

  Ideal for collectors, decorators and bird enthusiasts, these engravings are perfect for refined interiors, library walls, studios and curated gallery walls inspired by natural history, travel and the aesthetics of scientific illustration.

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  Buy with Confidence

  • Original antique prints — carefully selected and professionally preserved
  • Individually curated — each piece is unique and never a reproduction
  • Worldwide delivery via UPS / DHL Premium Express — free above €300
  • No customs duties or taxes worldwide — no delays, no extra charges upon delivery
  • Secure, professional packaging for safe international delivery
  • Returns accepted — a smooth, worry-free experience

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  Heritage Stories – Birds in the Dizionario di Scienze Naturali

  These bird engravings belong to the historic Dizionario di Scienze Naturali, a work that captured the richness of zoology through elegant plates and meticulous hand-colouring. Prêtre’s birds stand out for their balance of scientific clarity and aesthetic refinement, making them highly desirable to collectors and design lovers alike.

  Pierre Antoine Prêtre — Illustrator of Natural Science

  Sacchetti Collection — “Not Just Another Print”

  Looking for original bird engravings and antique ornithological prints to enrich your home, office or studio? Explore authentic 19th-century artworks featuring hornbills, kingfishers and jacamars — illustrated with scientific precision and timeless elegance.

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  Lemaire – Exotic Birds

  Curated Highlights from the Collection

  Selected original engravings from Lemaire – Exotic Birds.

  Tricolour Lory & Maipouri Parakeet

  Blue-headed Yellow Parakeets

  Rose-ringed & Plum-headed Parakeet

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  Lemaire – Exotic Birds: Hand-Colored Elegance in 19th-Century Ornithological Art

  Discover a refined selection of original 19th-century engravings of exotic birds, drawn and engraved by the Pauquet brothers and published in a visual language of remarkable elegance. These hand-colored works belong to a period when ornithological illustration combined natural observation with decorative sophistication, producing images that remain visually captivating today.

  Created in an age of growing fascination with distant species, these engravings present parrots, parakeets and other remarkable birds with a strong sense of grace, chromatic balance and compositional harmony. Their vivid plumage and poised attitudes give each composition a refined decorative presence, equally suited to collectors and to interiors seeking distinctive antique works.

  These prints offer a distinctive visual quality: elegant silhouettes, luminous hand-coloring and a carefully balanced composition that reflects both scientific intent and artistic sensibility. Their scale and clarity make them particularly effective as decorative pieces, where colour and form remain immediately legible.

  A defining feature of these works is their origin as “Peintes d’Après Nature” — drawn and coloured directly from life. This approach gives the compositions a remarkable sense of vitality and presence, setting them apart from more static or purely schematic illustrations. The result is a visual language in which scientific observation meets a refined decorative elegance.

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  Buy with Confidence

  • Original antique prints — carefully selected and professionally preserved
  • Individually curated — each piece is unique and never a reproduction
  • Worldwide delivery via UPS / DHL Premium Express — free above €300
  • No customs duties or taxes worldwide — no delays, no extra charges upon delivery
  • Secure, professional packaging for safe international delivery
  • Returns accepted — a smooth, worry-free experience

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  Heritage Stories – The Pauquet Brothers and Exotic Bird Illustration

  These engravings reflect the refined tradition of 19th-century natural history illustration, in which the Pauquet brothers translated exotic species into elegant visual compositions. Their work combines careful observation with decorative precision, bringing vividly coloured birds into the visual culture of collectors and interiors alike.

  Pauquet — Engravers of Exotic Natural History →

  Looking for original antique bird prints? Discover authentic 19th-century hand-colored engravings of exotic birds drawn and engraved by the Pauquet brothers — refined works of ornithological art combining decorative charm, vivid colour and historical appeal.

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  Keulemans Ceylon

  Keulemans – Birds of Ceylon

  This curated selection of original antique bird prints comes from The Birds of Ceylon, the celebrated ornithological work by William Vincent Legge, illustrated by the master bird artist Johannes Gerardus Keulemans. Published in the late nineteenth century, the work documented the avifauna of Ceylon — today Sri Lanka — with scientific precision and exceptional visual refinement.

  Only a limited series of plates was produced for the work, making these impressions especially desirable for collectors of Victorian ornithology and natural history illustration. The selection presented here focuses on some of the most visually compelling subjects: tropical birds with striking plumage, elegant silhouettes and the unmistakable balance of Keulemans’ draughtsmanship.

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  A Rare Ornithological Work on the Birds of Sri Lanka

  The Birds of Ceylon belongs to the great tradition of nineteenth-century regional ornithological works, when naturalists, collectors and artists collaborated to record the birdlife of distant ecosystems. Legge’s text and Keulemans’ plates together created one of the most admired visual records of Sri Lankan avifauna.

  Keulemans’ gift was his ability to combine anatomical truth with compositional grace. Hornbills, barbets, cuckoos, woodpeckers, drongos and birds of prey are presented with poised clarity: scientifically convincing, yet highly decorative. Their colours, profiles and natural postures make these plates particularly suitable for refined interiors, libraries, studies and collector walls.

  The examples offered by Prantique have been selected for their visual strength, rarity and exceptional state of preservation. Their fresh appearance and refined colouring allow them to stand not only as historical documents, but as elegant works of natural history art for contemporary spaces.

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  Heritage Stories

  Keulemans’ illustrations for The Birds of Ceylon form part of the wider golden age of ornithological publishing, when scientific discovery and fine lithographic illustration came together in works of lasting beauty. These plates connect the natural history of Sri Lanka with the broader legacy of Victorian bird art.

  Discover more about the artist behind these works in our dedicated article: Johannes Gerardus Keulemans — Precision and Passion in Ornithological Illustration.

  For readers wishing to better understand antique prints — from technique and paper to collecting criteria — explore our guide: Antique Prints Guide.

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  Reichenbach Birds

  Curated Highlights from the Collection

  Selected original hummingbird engravings from Reichenbach – Trochilinarum Enumeratio.

  Reichenbach Hummingbird Plate I

  Reichenbach Hummingbird Plate II

  Reichenbach Hummingbird Plate III

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  Reichenbach – Hummingbirds from the Victorian Age of Natural History

  Discover a rare selection of original nineteenth-century hummingbird engravings by Heinrich Gottlieb Ludwig Reichenbach, one of the most prolific German naturalists, botanists and ornithologists of the Victorian period. Drawn from his celebrated work Trochilinarum Enumeratio, these refined plates combine scientific observation with remarkable decorative elegance.

  Hummingbirds occupy a special place in nineteenth-century natural history: luminous, delicate and almost jewel-like, they offered both a scientific challenge and an extraordinary visual subject. Reichenbach’s engravings capture this dual nature with poised compositions, elegant proportions and vivid colour, making them highly desirable for collectors and refined interiors alike.

  Many plates bear the inscription “ad naturam” — from nature — a small but meaningful sign of the nineteenth-century ambition to observe and represent the living world with fidelity. These are not generic decorative bird images, but original works rooted in scientific culture, craftsmanship and historical authenticity.

  Their luminous colours, generous margins and graceful subjects make these antique hummingbird prints especially suited to studies, libraries, elegant living rooms and carefully curated spaces where beauty is expected to carry meaning.

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  Buy with Confidence

  • Original antique prints — carefully selected and professionally preserved
  • Individually curated — each piece is unique and never a reproduction
  • Worldwide delivery via UPS / DHL Premium Express — free above €300
  • No customs duties or taxes worldwide — no delays, no extra charges upon delivery
  • Secure, professional packaging for safe international delivery
  • Returns accepted — a smooth, worry-free experience

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  Heritage Stories – Ludwig Reichenbach and the Art of Hummingbirds

  Explore the story of Ludwig Reichenbach and his remarkable hummingbird engravings, where Victorian science, natural history and decorative beauty meet in one of the most elegant bird subjects of the nineteenth century.

  Ludwig Reichenbach and the Art of Hummingbirds →

  Looking for original antique hummingbird prints? Discover authentic 19th-century ornithological engravings by Ludwig Reichenbach from Trochilinarum Enumeratio — rare Victorian natural history prints combining scientific precision, decorative elegance and historical appeal.