John James Audubon (1785-1851)
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A Chronicle
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1785 John James Audubon is born Jean Jacques Rabine April 26, 1785, at Les Cayes on the island of Santa Domingo ( present-day Haiti ) in the West Indies. Audubon’s father Jean Audubon, a French sea captain, gentleman merchant and plantation owner, was present at the British surrender to the American revolutionary forces at the Battle of Yorktown in 1781.Audubon’s mother, Jeanne Rabine, is a young woman that his father met aboard ship on a passage to his plantation on the island of Santa Domingo. The 27-year-old chambermaid died seven months after giving birth to Audubon.
1788 Jean Audubon, fearing an impending revolt and slave uprising on Santa Domingo takes his illegitimate three-year-old son, his quadroon mistress Catherine Bouffard, her first and second child, Audubon’s half sister Rosa, to the Audubon family estate, La Gerbatiere in France at Coueron near Nantes. Jean Audubon’s lawful wife Anne Moynet Audubon raises the three children as her own. She is 15 years older than her sea captain husband.
Audubon’s stepmother dotes on her newly acquired family, and especially delights in her new son Jean Jacques, to whom she can deny nothing. Her willingness to indulge her son allows him to explore the natural world around him throughout his childhood and adolescence. Audubon’s loving stepmother becomes one of the most important influences in the artist’s creative life and the formation of his personality.
1789 George Washington is inaugurated first President of the United States. The French Revolution begins. Jean Jacques Rabine is formally adopted by Jean Audubon and his wife and given the name Jean Jacques Fougere.
1793 King Louis XVI of France is executed and The Reign of Terror begins.
1796 Following in the tradition of his father’s chosen profession as a sea captain, the young Audubon is enrolled in the Naval Academy at Rochefort-sue-Mer at the age of 11.
1800 The boy Jean is baptized Jean Jacques Fougere Audubon at the age of 15. He is raised to be part of the landed gentry and though illegitimate by birth, he enjoys all the privileges and economic advantages of a young gentleman.
As a young man Audubon is schooled for a few years in the Naval Academy but fails mathematics and is forced to leave. He returns home and pursues his own interests, which include hunting in the countryside, collecting bird nests and wild bird eggs. He never again receives any additional formal education.
1800 Napoleon Bonaparte establishes himself as First Counsel of France.
1801 Thomas Jefferson inaugurated third President of the United States.
1803 Captains Merriweather Lewis and William Clark lead the Corps of Discovery Expedition to the largely unexplored American West.
1803 U.S. President Jefferson makes The Louisiana Purchase from the government of Napoleon Bonaparte’s France for $15,000,000.
1803 To avoid the conflict in Europe and his son’s conscription into Napoleon Bonaparte's expanding military machine, Audubon’s father sends his 18-year-old son to manage his estate in America. He arrives at Mill Grove, a 200-acre farm outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The elder Audubon had purchased the land and its lead mine in 1789.
Audubon’s father had hopes of his son managing the farm and taking over the lead mining and smelting enterprise. Audubon, not interested in managing the family farm, wanders the landscape hunting and collecting bird specimens. Begins banding and invents technique of arranging birds with wires. The dashing young Frenchman begins his courtship with 17-year-old Lucy Green Bakewell, a neighbor from the nearby Fatland Ford Farm. A lifelong exchange of detailed correspondence begins during their five-year courtship.
1805 Audubon travels to Nantes, France, for a yearlong stay where he creates his earliest known mature drawings and renderings of birds and animals.
1806 In May, Audubon returns to America and the Mill Grove farm with Fernand Rozier, a business partner to manage the farm. He later decides to sell part of the Mill Grove property and go into business in the expanding West.
1807 Audubon travels with Rozier to open a general store in Louisville, Kentucky. He continues to collect, draw and examine bird specimens.
1808 After a five-year engagement Audubon travels to Pennsylvania to marry Miss Bakewell. They return to Louisville. On June 12, a year later, their first son Victor Gifford Audubon is born.
1810 Audubon and Rozier seek new opportunities further west and move their general store to Henderson, Kentucky, on the Ohio River.
1810 In March Audubon meets Alexander Wilson the Scottish ornithologist who encourages his drawing. Wilson is selling subscriptions to the first volumes of his nine-volume illustrated book of birds American Ornithology that he began publishing at Philadelphia in 1808. The cost is $120 for all nine volumes.
Audubon’s business partner Rozier suggests that his bird drawings are superior to Wilson’s and Audubon does not become a subscriber. They do view each other’s work and hunt birds together.
1810 Audubon’s partnership with Rozier is faltering and they move the general store to Saint Genevieve, Missouri.
1811 The partnership between Rozier and Audubon is dissolved. Audubon returns to Henderson, Kentucky. Lucy becomes a tutor to support the family.
1812 A new partnership with Lucy's brother, Thomas Bakewell, in a New Orleans business venture also fails. Family returns to Pennsylvania for a short period. On July 4 John James Audubon becomes an American Citizen at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Audubon’s second son John Woodhouse Audubon is born November 30.
1813 Audubon and his family return home to Henderson, Kentucky. Scottish ornithologist and artist Alexander Wilson dies at the age of 47.
1814 Due to “The Panic of 1814” Audubon’s business ventures including a partnership in a saw mill with Lucy’s brother Thomas Bakewell fails.
1815 First daughter Lucy Audubon is born. She dies two years later.
1819 Second daughter Rosa Audubon is born. Audubon is arrested and imprisoned for his debts at Louisville, and only released after declaring bankruptcy. To survive and provide for his family, Audubon turns to drawing charcoal portraits of prominent Louisville citizens for commissions.
1820 Daughter Rosa dies. Audubon seeks employment in Cincinnati, Ohio. He becomes a taxidermist at The Western Museum. He also teaches drawing and sends for Lucy and his two sons. Lucy resumes teaching. Audubon has his first concrete ideas about publishing his drawings to make his fortune.
Audubon makes a fall trip along the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers through the American South to New Orleans, Louisiana to create new bird drawings with his young assistant 20 year-old John Mason who creates the highly detailed drawings of the flowers and other botanical elements of the backgrounds.
1821 December 8, 1821 Lucy and her two sons, Victor and John, join Audubon in New Orleans. Lucy takes position as a governess. Audubon gives drawing lessons and organizes a dancing class for the landed gentry. Lucy Audubon later opens a private school at Beechwoods Plantation. She remains in Louisiana for five years in order to financially support her husband’s mission.
1822 At the plantation, 37-year-old Audubon paints a self-portrait and portraits of his sons, Victor and John Woodhouse, ages 13 and 10 respectively.
1824 Audubon travels to Philadelphia, America’s academic and intellectual capital, to seek out a publisher for his drawings of The Birds of America. He meets some of the leading artists of the day, including Rembrandt Peale, Thomas Sully, Richard Harlan and the French ornithologist nephew of Napoleon, Charles Lucien Bonaparte, prince of Musignano.
Audubon has an exhibition of his bird drawings at the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences. He fails to find a publisher for his Birds of America.
1824 A marked rivalry begins with the Philadelphia supporters of the late Scottish ornithologist Alexander Wilson, especially George Ord, his friend and editor. A Wilson book about North American Birds is already partially in print and its publishers and subscribers are heavily invested in its success.
1824 Audubon journeys on to New York City and is elected to membership in The Lyceum Of Natural History. Two of his papers are published in the Lyceum’s Annals. He later travels to Niagara Falls and Pittsburgh, where he meets the twenty-four-year old Swiss landscape painter George Lehman. Like young John Mason before him, Lehman will later join Audubon on several of his drawing and painting expeditions and become an integral partner in the creation of the backgrounds of many of Audubon’s works. Audubon again travels the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers on his return to Louisiana.
1825 Audubon arrives in Louisiana. Unable to find an American engraver willing to undertake the publication of his monumental The Birds of America project, he decides to seek support and publication in Europe.
1826 Leaving his wife Lucy and his two sons behind in Louisiana, Audubon assembles his portfolio of drawings and embarks for Europe. April 26, 1826, Audubon leaves for Liverpool, England aboard the heavily laden cotton schooner "Delos" to find a publisher.
It is an arduous 65-day passage and he is prone to seasickness. He turns 41-years old. The voyage will change Audubon’s life and his fortune. His art, science and writings will change the world’s view of the Nature itself.
Audubon arrives in Liverpool in July with a number of letters of introduction, including one to Lord William Rathbone, who arranges for an exhibition of his drawings. On September 10, he travels to Scotland and London where he presents his work to influential individuals, including Sir Walter Scott and begins exhibiting and lecturing to support his project. His art works are received with great enthusiasm and he becomes a success and a celebrity.1826 He is later elected as an Honorary Member of the prestigious Wernerian Society and as a result he includes the designation “M.W.S.” on his engravings and prints. The poet Sir Walter Scott’s friend, the Scottish painter John Syme paints Audubon’s portrait as the American Woodsman holding his shotgun and clad in wolf skin. The 1826 painting now hangs in the White House’s Red Room in Washington, D.C. The 1833 engraving is by Charles Wands printed by Fraser & Co. Edinburgh.
In Edinburgh he meets the master engraver and printer William H. Lizars. Lizars is amazed by the artist’s drawings and willingly agrees to begin the production of the life-sized copperplate engravings of the birds for The Birds of America folio. They are printed on Double Elephant Whatman paper.
The first proof PLATE I, The Wild Turkey Cock is printed on November 28, 1826. A second print PLATE II, Yellow Billed Cuckoo soon follows.
1826 On December 10, he writes his wife Lucy in America and says, “My situation in Edinburgh borders on the miraculous!”
1827 Lizars produces the first 10 of the plates, but only about 50 prints of the copperplate engravings are hand-colored before his staff goes on strike and stops the production of The Birds of America. In March, Audubon is elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and begins to use the credit “F.R.S.E” on his prints.
In June Audubon travels to London to find a new engraver and meets with 54-year-old Robert Havell Sr. Havell hesitates taking on The Birds of America project because of his advanced age (54), but recommends that his son Robert Havell Jr. can do the work. This begins an 11-yearlong collaboration and the laborious process of creating, proofing and producing the individual hand-colored engravings that will become the great folio. When it is completed in June 1838, The Birds of America will consist of four volumes containing 435 individual hand-colored plates depicting 1, 065 individual birds. Each of the four volumes weighs 50 pounds.
Audubon plans an accompanying text documenting each bird species individual habits and characteristics that will be published separately in five volumes as The Ornithological Biography. The biography is completed in 1839.
1828 Audubon travels to France to promote and sell subscriptions to The Birds of America. He is elected to The Linnean Society as a Fellow later in the year and adds the distinction “F.L.S.” to his prints
1829 Audubon returns to America to sell subscriptions and gather more specimens for inclusion
in The Birds of America. He travels to New Jersey and Pennsylvania painting birds, then on to Kentucky and Louisiana. The United States House of Representatives subscribes. He also begins work on the text of the Ornithological Biography with William MacGillivary.1830 He and his wife Lucy travel to England to oversee the production of the plates. He finds that he has been elected Fellow of The Royal Society of London in March 1829. The credit “F.R.S.L” is added to the prints. He continues working on the text for the Ornithological Biography.
1831 Audubon returns to America to collect more specimens and make additional drawings, first for business to Philadelphia and Washington and then with George Lehman and his taxidermist Henry Ward, to Charleston, South Carolina. There he meets Reverend John Bachman who becomes a life long friend and partner. He also meets Bachman’s sister in law Maria Martin who later works with Audubon. He embarks for Saint Augustine, Florida on his first fully equipped and funded birding expedition. Lucy returns to New Orleans via Louisville where she sells several subscriptions to The Birds of America.
PLATE 308 is drawn at John Bulow’s slave plantation in East Florida in 1832.
1832 Audubon travels throughout Florida eventually exploring the Florida Keys. In late summer he travels to Philadelphia and meets with the artist John Inman and others. In September he explores the coast of Maine. Henry Inman’s portrait of Audubon is painted in Philadelphia.
1833 Audubon and his team make an expedition to Labrador to draw the seabirds. The publication of the first volume of Audubon’s Ornithological Biography is accomplished. He spends the winter painting at Charleston, South Carolina, as the guest of his friend the Reverend John Bachman.
1834 In April he returns to England to oversee the production of The Birds of America project and to sell more subscriptions. The second volume of Ornithological Biography is published. Lucy and John James Audubon’s portraits are painted by the British artist George Cruikshank
(1792-1878).1835 The third volume of the Ornithological Biography is published.
1836 Audubon returns to America and is celebrated for his accomplishments as a naturalist and explorer. He winters in Charleston with the Bachman family. His two sons Victor and John tour Europe.
1837 Audubon travels through South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama and later west to Texas in search of new bird specimens. His son John Woodhouse Audubon marries Reverend Bachman’s daughter Maria.
1838 The production of Audubon’s magnum opus, The Birds Of America containing the 435 life-sized, hand-colored copperplate engravings, is finally completed by Robert Havell Jr., London. It is printed on J. Whatman Double Elephant Folio sized paper and is presented in four very large leather bound volumes each weighing 50 pounds. It sells for $1,000.00. Less than 200 of the bound copies are printed. Audubon’s personal cost for the production is recorded as being over 29,000 British Pounds or approximately over $600,000 in today’s currency.
The fourth volume of the Ornithological Biography is published. Audubon later travels to Labrador to follow bird migrations.
1839 Audubon returns to America to produce the smaller edition Royal Octavo sizedBirds of America. This same year photography is invented by the painter Louis Dauguerre in Paris. The fifth and final volume of Audubon’s Ornithological Biography is completed. He settles in New York City.
1840 Audubon and his son John Woodhouse begin the paintings for the Imperial Folio of the Quadrupeds. Audubon travels to the North East and South to sell subscriptions.
1842 Audubon purchases Minnie’s Land, an estate of 30 acres on the Hudson River just north of New York City. “Minnie” is a pet name for his wife Lucy. The site of Minnie’s Land is now 157 Street in Manhattan.
Plans to publish books on mammals with Dr. John Bachman. the Viviparous Quadrupedswill be issued between 1845 and 1849.
1843 Audubon makes the Missouri expedition to Fort Union to collect more material for the Quadrupeds and more bird specimens. He borrows the late Captain William Clark’s original copy of his 1803 Expedition Journal of the Corps of Discovery to use as a guidebook. It is Audubon’s final expedition. He is 58 years of age.
The smaller and less costly Royal Octavo edition of Audubon’s Birds of America printed by the lithographer J.T. Bowen of Philadelphia is completed. The trip lasts eight months and takes its toll on the artist. He is 58 and returns to New York exhausted.
1843 John Woodhouse Audubon creates a portrait of his bearded father. A year later, the seventh and final volume, of the Royal OctavoBirds of America is completed.
1845 Audubon’s physical health declines dramatically and his sons take on responsibility for managing his artworks and the business of their publication. The next year, John Woodhouse travels to Texas to paint the animals for The Quadrupeds.
1847 Audubon’s eyesight fails and he has a stroke. He is never totally blind but can no longer draw and paint. He wanders around his estate accompanied by a servant.
1848 The final volume of the Imperial edition of the Quadrupeds folio is completed.
1849 Gold is discovered in California. John Woodhouse travels to Texas then on to the California goldfields. The first volume of the Royal Octavo Edition of the Quadrupeds folio is published.
1850 Last known photographic portrait of Audubon. John Woodhouse returns from California.
1851 January 27 John James Audubon dies peacefully at Minnie’s Land at the age of 66. He is buried at Trinity Cemetery at 155 Street and Broadway in New York City.
1854 Copies of Audubon’s Birds of America and Imperial edition of The Quadrupeds folios are presented as gifts from American President Millard Fillmore to the Emperor of Japan by Commodore Matthew Perry.
1858 The Julius Bien edition of Audubon’s Birds of America is begun using the new Chromolithography technique.
1860 Audubon’s son Victor Gifford Audubon dies. Two years later his other son John Woodhouse Audubon dies.
1861 The American Civil War begins. Lucy Audubon sells her husband’s personal copy of the four-volume Birds of America folio to John Taylor Johnston for $600. Johnson, Fry & Company publishes a steel engraving portrait of Audubon after the oil painting by artist Alonzo Chappel (1828-1887).
1863 Lucy Bakewell Audubon is destitute and sells the original watercolors and drawings, some 800 original works of art to the New York Historical Society for a total of $4,000 that is paid in installments.
1866 Lucy Audubon desperate for money sells the original copper plates for The Birds of America to Phelps Dodge Corporation for their value as scrap metal. By 1873, approximately 80 of the original 435 copper plates for The Birds of America are saved from being melted down.
1874 Lucy Audubon dies at the age of 88.
1886 The first Audubon Society founded by George Bird Grinnell. A year later the Audubon Magazine is published.
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