Marsh Tern

1838 · Print

May one see it?

Not receiving at present

National Gallery of Art

Washington, D.C., United States

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

Checked: 9 days ago
In this state since: Aug 19, 2026
Source: The museum

On the map Museum page

Particulars

Accession number: 1945.8.410

What it shows

Bird Sky

In the catalog

Prints Engraving Romanticism 19th century American

Sources

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

Meanwhile, in the life of John James Audubon

The whole life

summer 1836 – spring 1837
The South and Texas: meeting Sam Houston
In the summer of 1836 Audubon set off for America with his son John; the trip took in South Carolina, Florida, Louisiana and Texas. In October he was at last able to study Townsend's Columbia River collection, which in his opinion held about 40 new species, and to buy some of the skins; in the spring of 1837 he travelled by water to Galveston Bay, visited Houston and met Sam Houston, president of the Republic of Texas. By then he had lost almost all his teeth, and on the trip he lost 12 pounds.
August 1837
His last visit to England: the “Synopsis” of American birds
In August 1837 Audubon returned to England for the last time and oversaw the publication of the final volumes of both works. He then issued for subscribers a one-volume index, the “Synopsis of the Birds of America”, his attempt at a classification of birds of his own.
1839
Moves to New York and a cheaper edition of the “Birds”
In 1839 Audubon moved with his family to New York, where several hundred of his works were exhibited that year, and began a new edition of “The Birds of America” with reduced-size illustrations and the ornithological text. Demand was huge: on 3 December 1839, 300 copies of the first number were ready, and on 9 January 1841, 1,475, with the total number of subscribers reaching 1,198.
1840s
“The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America” with Bachman
Together with John Bachman Audubon began a book on quadrupeds, agreed back in 1831: he did the illustrations and Bachman wrote the text. By the mid-1840s his sons were doing most of the work (John Woodhouse drew about half of the 150 illustrations), and in 1845 relations with Bachman soured further: Audubon did not supply him with skins from his last collection, his notes or the books Bachman had ordered.

All works