The Great-Footed Hawk
A pair of peregrine falcons over fresh kill — one of Audubon’s most violent plates.
- Work
- Great-footed Hawk, Plate 16, from The Birds of America
- Artist / naturalist
- John James Audubon (engraved by Robert Havell Jr.)
- Origin & date
- London, 1829
- Held by
- Wikimedia Commons
Format
The full-resolution scan, color-managed to the source — yours to print, study, and keep.
Size
$19.00
The story
'Great-footed hawk' was the working 19th-century name for the peregrine falcon, and Audubon stages this pair — a male and female, sexed and labeled per his usual convention — at their most characteristic: locked over a duck they've just brought down, wings still raised, one bird's beak still bloodied. Audubon rarely softened predation for a genteel audience; he considered a hunting bird's violence as legitimate a subject as any songbird's domestic scene, and the peregrine's raw speed (still the fastest animal on Earth in a stoop) made it one of his favorite dramatic set-pieces. What to notice: a small grisaille study of a third falcon's head, unfinished and left in pencil at upper right, is a rare glimpse of Audubon's working process bleeding directly into a finished engraved plate — Havell apparently transferred it deliberately, not by mistake.
About this reproduction
- Faithful reproduction of a public-domain work, sourced from Wikimedia Commons’s open-access release.
- Printed to order on 200gsm EMA matte art paper: smooth, no glare.
- Color-managed to the source scan.
- Ships in 5–8 business days; satisfaction guarantee.
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