The print is the point
Anyone can sell the image — it’s public domain. What you’re buying here is the object: how faithfully, and how durably, the masterwork lands on your wall.
- Museum-grade cotton-rag
- Heavyweight archival cotton-rag stock — the same acid-free paper conservators trust — not thin poster stock.
- Archival pigment, 100+ years
- Pigment inks, not dye: rated to hold their colour past a century without fading or shifting.
- Colour-managed to the source
- Each file is profiled to the holding institution’s own scan, so the print reads as the painting does.
- Gallery canvas on solid wood
- Canvas is gallery-wrapped over kiln-dried solid-wood stretcher bars — taut, square, ready to hang.
Hummingbirds
Gould’s jewels — iridescence printed in gold leaf.
- Work
- John Gould, from A Monograph of the Trochilidae
- Artist / creator
- John Gould (British, 1804–1881)
- Origin & date
- A Monograph of the Trochilidae, 1849–1861
- Held by
- A Monograph of the Trochilidae (1849–1861)
Format
The full-resolution color-managed file — yours to print, study, and keep.
Sized to protect print quality — this scan's resolution supports sizes up to 12x16 cleanly.
Size
$24.00
The story
John Gould was obsessed with hummingbirds — he amassed thousands of specimens and drew crowds when he displayed them — and his five-volume Monograph of the Trochilidae is his monument to them. To capture the impossible metallic shimmer of the birds’ throats, his printers laid transparent oil glazes over gold and silver leaf, so the plates themselves catch the light and flash as you move, exactly as the living bird does. Here a hummingbird hangs at a flower, its gorget glinting, the whole thing as much jewel as illustration. Rigorous science shot through with pure wonder — the Victorian love of the natural world at its most dazzling.
About this reproduction
- Faithful reproduction of a public-domain work, sourced from A Monograph of the Trochilidae (1849–1861)’s open-access release.
- Printed to order on archival cotton-rag stock, pigment inks rated 100+ years.
- Color-managed to the source scan.
- Every factual claim about this work — title, artist, date, and holding institution — is verified against the art-historical record and the source institution.
- Ships in 5–8 business days; satisfaction guaranteed.
