Dode tureluur hangend aan een poot 1851 - 1870

Édouard Traviès created this print of a Eurasian Curlew sometime in the 19th century using lithography, a process that makes printing possible on a large scale. Lithography’s rise was contemporary with the Industrial Revolution, and its effects were felt throughout the art world. Unlike a unique painting or drawing, prints can be produced in multiples and distributed widely, to be consumed by a broad public. Here, the lithographic process mimics the careful, painstaking observation of a naturalist’s watercolor. It shows a dead curlew suspended upside down against a neutral background, its plumage delicately rendered. But unlike a watercolor, this image could have been distributed as an inexpensive illustration, perhaps in a scientific textbook or even a hunting manual. Looking at this image, we have to remember the social and economic context of its making, alongside its beauty. The print is both a work of art and an index of a rapidly changing world.