Autruche (Ostrich), from "Histoire Naturelle de Oiseaux"

François Nicolas Martinet

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This hand-colored image comes from "Histoire Naturelle Des Oiseaux," a famous set of volumes edited by Georges Louis Leclerc, le comte de Buffon (1707-1788), Intendant du Jardin des Plantes du Roi (head of the royal botanical gardens) under Louis XV. Initially the project was conceived as part of Buffon’s extensive natural history of the world, "Histoire Naturelle, Générale et Particulière," begun in 1749. As published with hand-colored plates engraved by Martinet, the set became an independent set published 1771-86. Distinguished by yellow borders, the images generally show one bird in profile with its habitat indicated in a summary way. Martinet trained as an engineer and draftsman but is best remembered as an engraver, with birds his particular specialty.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art