Eskrich's illustrations predate Audubon's by 300 years

01:00 AM EST on Saturday, March 25, 2006

BY RICHARD PYLE
Associated Press

NEW YORK -- Three hundred years before American artist-naturalist James Audubon crafted his landmark "Birds of America" series, French illustrator Pierre Eskrich fled religious persecution and set up his easel in Switzerland, where he produced his own astonishing collection of 218 bird paintings.

It would be easy to say they inspired Audubon, except that as far as is known, Audubon never knew they existed. Nor did many other people, as Eskrich's birds migrated into private hands in England in the late 1700s, and a century later to America.

In late 2003, Roberta J.M. Olson rediscovered the four large, leather-bound albums of paintings in the archives of the New-York Historical Society, where they had lain at least since 1889, mislabeled as "anonymous 18th century European birds" and of British origin.

As curator of the society's collection of 8,000 drawings, including hundreds of original Audubon watercolors, Olson began a project in 2003 to catalog the holdings. The albums were in the archives but "nobody had ever looked at them," she said.

In examining the books, Olson said, she quickly realized what it was -- previously unknown work by a legendary French illustrator and a "missing link" in the field of ornithological art.

"It was a 'eureka moment,' but I actually have had many of those -- in my profession, one discovery leads to another and another," Olson said last week, as two of the heavy books went on display for the first time in conjunction with an exhibit of 40 original watercolors from the society's Audubon collection, the world's largest.

In their glass case, the albums were open to pages showing a falcon, male and female bramblings, a male pheasant and a northern bald ibis -- all European species painted from life or from specimens by Eskrich, and after nearly 500 years, still in near-perfect condition.

The paintings, dating from 1554-1562, coincided with the first illustrated ornithological treatises published during the Reformation, "really the beginning of scientific study and taxonomy," Olson said. Scientific inscriptions on the pages quote Aristotle in Greek, and Pliny in Latin.

Eskrich, also known as Pierre DuVase, fled Lyon, France, to escape the Edict of Chateaubriand, a bloody crackdown on Protestantism, and wound up in Geneva as one of three noted avian artists.

Both of his colleagues died of plague and Eskrich eventually returned to Lyon where he reconverted to Catholicism in order to survive. Watermarks on the paper of some drawings were traced to a mill that operated in Lyon in 1533-1566.

Although experimental in their time, the Eskrich drawings "prefigure what Audubon did," Olson said. "Like Audubon, he used multimedia techniques of watercolor, pastel, ink, the whole nine yards. They offer a window into this missing link of ornithological history."

Last December, the Providence Athenaeum sold its set (435 poster-size color engravings) of Audubon's "Birds of America" series for $5 million at auction in New York, to an anonymous phone buyer (see accompanying story).

The value of Eskrich's work is considered high. Some of his drawings -- the bramblings with their fuzzy chest feathers, for example -- are so skillfully executed that they could have come from a modern-day field guide.

Excited by what she calls a "lost chapter" of avian art, the curator launched an effort to trace the origins of the Eskrich birds and where they had been over three centuries.

"I have pretty much established the provenance, except for a few chunks that are missing," said Olson, conceding that she wants to save some details for a book she is writing.

The albums, she said, had been acquired in the late 18th century by Britain's Duke of Devonshire, sold at auction in London in the mid-1800s, and later given to the Historical Society by Nathaniel H. Bishop, a Victorian-era naturalist and explorer who had made a fortune in cranberry bogs.

"He wanted to give them in appreciation for the librarians who helped him in his research, and he hoped that artists would study them. He knew the Audubons had been here since 1863," said Olson.

The exhibit of aviary paintings is at the New York Historical Society, 170 Central Park West, through May 7. The society is open Tuesdays through Sundays, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and until 8 p.m. on Fridays. It's open to groups on Mondays by appointment. Admission is $10, $5 for seniors, students and teachers, and free for children 12 and younger who are accompanied by an adult. For more information, call (212) 873-3400 or visit www.nyhistory.org.