The Discovery of Audubon's Missing Bird

John James Audubon (1785-1851) achieved fame and fortune with his epic The Birds of North America. Audubon was in his mid-40s when his masterwork was finally published. Prior to that, his life was filled with frustration and marked by financial insecurity.

Audubon's first foray into commercial illustration took place in 1824, three years before The Birds of America. The work, a drawing of a running grouse, would be converted into an engraving that would grace a New Jersey bank note. (In those days, paper money was printed by independent banks and not by the federal government.) This illustration was to be the first publication of an Audubon bird.

However, this notable illustration proved elusive. It's referred to in two separate and cryptic entries in Audubon's journals, but the image itself had never been found. Numerous scholars searched for it over the decades, but their efforts went unrewarded. The repeated failures to find the print even prompted some to dismiss its existence.

Now, after a decade-long search, the missing illustration has been discovered.

In a forthcoming article in the Journal of the Early Republic, Robert M. Peck, who is curator of art and artifacts and senior fellow at the Academy of Natural Sciences, and Eric Newman, an authority on early American money, reveal how their discovery was made. They also shed light on how forces operating in the early 19th-century American banking industry might have determined the fate of Audubon's bird.

The trail begins with Gideon Fairman (1774-1827), the principal of a successful Philadelphia engraving firm (Fairman, Draper, Underwood & Co.) that specialized in paper currency for banks. (It was Fairman who advised Audubon to solicit English engravers for printing The Birds of America.) Audubon needed the income and would have welcomed an opportunity to showcase his art. For his part, Fairman was probably looking for novel and distinctive designs that would help sell his services.

Peck and Newman found their bird in the sample sheets and bank note proofs from Fairman's firm and its successors. (Sample sheets typically presented a selection of patriotic symbols and generic vignettes available for inclusion in prospective customer's bank note.) A unusual illustration of a running bird presented itself in the bottom row of one sample sheet that probably dates to the period in question. The bird was a heath hen, a specimen that Audubon's contemporaries probably would have considered unremarkable, especially in comparison to the majestic eagles, military heroes, and draped figures of Lady Liberty that typically adorned the paper money of the day.

This same bird can be seen in proofs of bank note for two banks, one for the Bridgeport Bank of Connecticut and the other for the Bank of Norwalk, Ohio. It's not clear whether either of these notes ever went into circulation. The fate of the original bank note proof, referred to in the second of Audubon's two journal entries, is also unknown. According to the entry, the bank note proof that Audubon showed his English patrons was intended for an independent bank located in New Jersey. It may be, however, that the bank note with Audubon's bird never made it into mass circulation.

Another plausible, albeit convoluted, scenario also presents itself. State Bank, an independent bank located in Trenton, New Jersey (and a client of Fairman, Draper, Underwood & Co.) began to fail in 1825. Its notes, now worthless, became the raw material for counterfeiters targeting another independent bank located in Camden New Jersey. This second bank—also named State Bank and also a client of Fairman, Draper, Underwood & Co.—was a separate and solvent enterprise. (The similarity of the notes from the two banks made counterfeiting relatively easy.) It its efforts to protect itself by removing its own notes from circulation, the Camden bank may have eliminated any bills with the Audubon bird.

Although the absence of bank notes graced by the heath hen can be treated as one more setback for John James Audubon, the note proof he apparently showed around England may have enhanced his prospects for publishing The Birds of America. In any case, this majestic publication provided Audubon with fame, fortune, and a lasting legacy.

The bird illustration itself merits special attention. Although the heath hen drawing lacks the glorious colors and monumental scale of the images found in Birds of America, its qualities presages those that distinguish the subjects in the later masterwork. This humble grouse is depicted in an active, life-like pose rather than the stilted dispositions typical of the time. Moreover, details of its pose and placement in its habitat demonstrates the artist's first-hand and thorough knowledge of his subject.