{"product_id":"john_james_audubon__wild_turkey","title":"Wild Turkey - John James Audubon, 1827","description":"\u003ch2\u003eWild Turkey by John James Audubon, 1827\u003c\/h2\u003e\u003ch3\u003eFramed Canvas Art\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis magnificent plate from Audubon's landmark ornithological series depicts \u003cstrong\u003ea hen Wild Turkey\u003c\/strong\u003e striding through a lush, botanically precise wetland environment, her \u003cstrong\u003eiridescent bronze and chestnut plumage\u003c\/strong\u003e rendered with extraordinary fidelity against a backdrop of reed grasses and flowering plants. Behind her, a brood of \u003cstrong\u003eseven downy poults\u003c\/strong\u003e scatter and tumble in every direction, their pale buff and russet markings captured mid-motion with a naturalist's precision and a painter's instinct for life. The composition is radically horizontal, pressing the adult bird's mass close against the picture plane while the young recede into the green middle distance, creating a layered sense of depth unusual among specimen plates of the era. The tonal range runs from the near-black of the hen's body feathers through warm amber and copper wing coverts to the \u003cstrong\u003ebright white undersides of the fleeing poults\u003c\/strong\u003e, all set against a ground of mixed olive and sage greens shot through with the soft brown of bare earth.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAudubon began work on \u003cem\u003eThe Birds of America\u003c\/em\u003e in the early 1820s, driven by an ambition to document every bird species on the North American continent at life size. The Wild Turkey held a special place in the project: it appeared as Plate 1 of the first bound fascicle, issued in London by Robert Havell Sr. and Jr. beginning in 1827, and its selection as the opening image was a declaration of intent. The turkey had been proposed by Benjamin Franklin as a national symbol, and Audubon's treatment of it as a living, moving creature surrounded by offspring rather than as a static trophy set the \u003cem\u003enaturalistic illustration\u003c\/em\u003e tradition he would pursue across the full 435 plates of the folio. The composition draws on Audubon's practice of wiring freshly killed specimens into lifelike poses and working in watercolour directly from them, a method that gave his plates an urgency no earlier European natural history illustrator had quite achieved. The \u003cem\u003edouble elephant folio\u003c\/em\u003e format, at roughly 39 by 29 inches per sheet, meant the hen turkey could be drawn nearly at natural scale, a deliberate choice that distinguished \u003cem\u003eThe Birds of America\u003c\/em\u003e from every competing ornithological publication of its time.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOur archival \u003cem\u003egiclee\u003c\/em\u003e process on museum-grade cotton canvas preserves details that offset lithography and mass-produced reproduction consistently lose: the subtle gradations running from the near-black of the hen's body through the warm copper of her wing coverts to the buff and white of the poults' undersides are resolved with full tonal fidelity, and the fine hatching and layered watercolour washes Audubon used to model each feather group remain legible at every scale we offer. Our source material has been digitally restored from high-resolution museum scans, recovering the colour accuracy and fine botanical detail in the reed and flowering plant background that degraded poster-quality prints flatten into undifferentiated green. The work arrives in our ornate composite frame, a fitting presentation for one of the founding documents of American natural history art.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Canvas Classics","offers":[{"title":"Small \/ Gold \/ Classic","offer_id":68136879259883,"sku":"2621111","price":195.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Small \/ Silver \/ Classic","offer_id":68136879292651,"sku":"2621112","price":195.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Small \/ Charcoal \/ Classic","offer_id":68136879325419,"sku":"2621113","price":195.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Small \/ Gold \/ Regency","offer_id":68136879358187,"sku":"262111R1","price":195.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Small \/ Silver \/ Regency","offer_id":68136879390955,"sku":"262111R2","price":195.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Small \/ Charcoal \/ Regency","offer_id":68136879423723,"sku":"262111R3","price":195.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Small \/ Gloss Black \/ Regency","offer_id":68136879456491,"sku":"262111R4","price":195.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Small \/ Gloss White \/ Regency","offer_id":68136879489259,"sku":"262111R5","price":195.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Medium \/ Gold \/ Classic","offer_id":68136879522027,"sku":"2621121","price":295.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Medium \/ Silver \/ Classic","offer_id":68136879554795,"sku":"2621122","price":295.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Medium \/ Charcoal \/ Classic","offer_id":68136879587563,"sku":"2621123","price":295.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Medium \/ Gold \/ Regency","offer_id":68136879620331,"sku":"262112R1","price":295.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Medium \/ Silver \/ Regency","offer_id":68136879653099,"sku":"262112R2","price":295.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Medium \/ Charcoal \/ Regency","offer_id":68136879685867,"sku":"262112R3","price":295.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Medium \/ Gloss Black \/ Regency","offer_id":68136879718635,"sku":"262112R4","price":295.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Medium \/ Gloss White \/ Regency","offer_id":68136879751403,"sku":"262112R5","price":295.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Large \/ Gold \/ Classic","offer_id":68136879784171,"sku":"2621131","price":495.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Large \/ Silver \/ Classic","offer_id":68136879816939,"sku":"2621132","price":495.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Large \/ Charcoal \/ Classic","offer_id":68136879849707,"sku":"2621133","price":495.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Large \/ Gold \/ Regency","offer_id":68136879882475,"sku":"262113R1","price":495.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Large \/ Silver \/ Regency","offer_id":68136879915243,"sku":"262113R2","price":495.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Large \/ Charcoal \/ Regency","offer_id":68136879948011,"sku":"262113R3","price":495.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Large \/ Gloss Black \/ Regency","offer_id":68136879980779,"sku":"262113R4","price":495.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Large \/ Gloss White \/ Regency","offer_id":68136880013547,"sku":"262113R5","price":495.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Estate \/ Gold \/ Classic","offer_id":68136880046315,"sku":"2621141","price":995.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Estate \/ Silver \/ Classic","offer_id":68136880079083,"sku":"2621142","price":995.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Estate \/ Charcoal \/ Classic","offer_id":68136880111851,"sku":"2621143","price":995.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Estate \/ Gold \/ Regency","offer_id":68136880144619,"sku":"262114R1","price":995.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Estate \/ Silver \/ Regency","offer_id":68136880177387,"sku":"262114R2","price":995.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Estate \/ Charcoal \/ Regency","offer_id":68136880210155,"sku":"262114R3","price":995.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Estate \/ Gloss Black \/ Regency","offer_id":68136880242923,"sku":"262114R4","price":995.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Estate \/ Gloss White \/ Regency","offer_id":68136880275691,"sku":"262114R5","price":995.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0762\/8606\/6923\/files\/john_james_audubon__wild_turkey__large__dark_bronze.jpg?v=1792367095","url":"https:\/\/canvasclassics.shop\/products\/john_james_audubon__wild_turkey","provider":"Canvas Classics","version":"1.0","type":"link"}