Brown-Headed Nuthatch

1831 · Print

Can I see it?

Not on view at present

Where is “Brown-Headed Nuthatch” now? Collection: National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Not on view at present. Checked September 29, 2026.

National Gallery of Art

Washington, D.C., United States

It belongs to the collection, but is not on display at present.

Checked: 11 days ago
In this state since: Aug 19, 2026
Source: The museum

On the map Museum page

Details

Accession number: 1945.8.125

What it shows

Bird Tree

In the catalog

Prints Engraving Romanticism 19th century American

Sources

National Gallery of Art
Image: National Gallery of Art — Museum open access

In the life of John James Audubon

The whole life

1829–1830
Elected to the Royal Society of London
While Audubon was in America, he was elected to the Royal Society of London.
1830
Dinner with President Andrew Jackson
On 1 January 1830 the Audubons left Louisiana and visited New Orleans, New York and Washington, where they dined with President Andrew Jackson (Audubon's works were then on show in Congress, which bought a copy), before boarding a steamship.
October 1830
Begins publishing the “Ornithological Biography”
Having toured the British Isles with his wife, Audubon settled in Edinburgh in October 1830 and began publishing the “Ornithological Biography”, the text describing the species shown in “The Birds of America”. The five volumes, issued in 1831–1838, run to more than three thousand pages.
1831
Elected to the American academies: fame on both sides of the ocean
In 1831, while Ord was in England, Audubon was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Boston, the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, which had earlier refused him, and the American Philosophical Society. By then he was a celebrity on both sides of the Atlantic, and the newspapers tracked his movements.
October 1831
Charleston: meeting John Bachman
In October 1831 at Charleston Audubon met John Bachman, who was interested in ornithology and a good shot: his huge house had a separate room for a taxidermist. Bachman's sister-in-law Maria Martin lived there, and Audubon hired her to paint background details; it was then that they agreed on a future book on quadrupeds.
spring – summer 1833
The Labrador expedition
In the spring of 1833 Audubon set out for Labrador with his son John Woodhouse and several young assistants to observe water birds in breeding plumage. The trip was not very successful, yielding 23 drawings and 73 prepared birds besides a collection of sea animals and plants, but a nest of the blackpoll warbler that he found, in his words, paid for the whole journey.