Jean-Gabriel Pretre (French, fl. 1824-1840)
Violet Pigeon (Columbia Janthina)
Watercolor with traces of pencil
Signed in brown ink
ca. 1825
Paper size: 19 x 13 3/4 in
Frame size: 31 x 24 1/4 in

Violet Pigeon was originally produced in Temminck and Laugier’s Nouveau Recueil de Planches Coloriees d’Oiseaux pour servir de suite et de complement aux planches de Buffon as plate 503. This bird is a native of China, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea, but is currently in danger of extinction.

Jean-Gabriel Pretre, one of the most prolific and gifted artists of his time, was a painter frequently employed by naturalists to visually document exotic plants and animals. Pretre birds often featured deeply saturated colors, enabling his birds to stand out against their neutral backgrounds.

Pretre painted for some of the most important botanical and zooligcal books of his age, including Beauvois’ Flore...de Bénin (published from 1804-1807), Beauvois’ Flore des Antilles (1808-1827), Buffon’s Natural History (1749-1804), Dumont, Quoy and Gaimard’s Voyage de decounvertes de l’astrolabe execute par ordre du roi... (1830-1835), Freycinet, Quoy and Gaimard’s Voyage autour du monde, enterpris par ordre du roi...(1824-1826), Jardine, Selby and Swanson’s The Naturalist’s Library (1833-1843), Laplace, Eydoux and Gervais’ Voyage autour du monde par les mers de l’Inde et de Chine execute sur la corvette de l’etat la favorite pendent les annees 1830, 1831 et to 1832...zoologie (1836-1839), Lesson’s Histoire naturelle des oiseaux de paradis et des epimaques (1834-1835), de la Sagra and d’Orbigny’s Histoire physique, politique et naturelle d’ile de Cuba (1839-1843), and de Savigny and Audon’s Systeme des oiseaux de l’Egypte et de la Syrie (1810).