The White-Headed Eagle
The bald eagle, drawn seventy years before it became a national symbol.
- Work
- The White-Headed Eagle (Falco leucocephalus), from The Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands
- Artist / naturalist
- Mark Catesby
- Origin & date
- London, 1731–1743
- Held by
- Wikimedia Commons (National Gallery of Art)
Format
The full-resolution scan, color-managed to the source — yours to print, study, and keep.
Size
$19.00
The story
Mark Catesby's plate of what he called the 'white-headed eagle' — the bald eagle, roughly seven decades before the newly formed United States adopted it as a national symbol — shows the bird stooping toward a fish, talons already extended, in one of the more dynamic compositions in his entire Natural History. Catesby includes two supplementary studies on the same sheet: a small sketch of a different eagle in flight at upper left, and a separate anatomical study of the eagle's head and beak at right, a level of documentary thoroughness typical of his self-etched plates. What to notice: Catesby worked nearly a decade before Audubon was even born, making this one of the earliest surviving painted records of the species — a bird whose population later collapsed under DDT and hunting before 20th-century conservation law brought it back.
About this reproduction
- Faithful reproduction of a public-domain work, sourced from Wikimedia Commons (National Gallery of Art)’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.
From the same naturalist
