[portrait] John James Audubon began traveling along the frontier in 1820, making sketches of birds in their habitats. By 1826 he was in England overseeing the publication of a series of giant folios, The Birds of North America, which took 12 years to complete. The success of this work and others made Audubon one of most influential 19th-century naturalists. His works acquainted people throughout the United States and Europe with the bequty and diversity of American Wildlife.

Audubon found that he could attract greater public attention by dressing like a woodsman. When his son painted the original version of this portrait, he may have been motivated by the knowledge thst this was the image the public favored.


Courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution Libraries.
John James Audubon

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