JACQUES BARRABAND (FRENCH, 1768-1809) La Perruche a front jaune, ou l’apute-juba [A brown-throated parakeet]

JACQUES BARRABAND (FRENCH, 1768-1809)
La Perruche a front jaune, ou l’apute-juba [A brown-throated parakeet]
Illustration for François Levaillant’s Histoire Naturelle des Perroquets, Paris, vol 1 Plate 35 (1805-06)
signed ‘Barraband. f.’ and numbered ‘35’
black chalk, watercolor and gouache on wove paper
Paper size: 20 1/2 x 13 7/8 in.
Frame size: 24 1/4 x 17 3/4 in.
Provenance: Marcel Jeanson (1885-1942); Sotheby’s, London, 13 December 1996, lot 74.

Levaillant wrote of this bird, “As with all parrots, the female is smaller than the male, and especially has a shorter tail. She also differs somewhat in her colors, in that she has a distinct yellow only on the edge of her forehead and on a part of her cheeks near the ears: the other parts of her face, yellow on the male, are reddish in her, as are the front of her neck and her breast. Elsewhere, the colors are the same in both sexes, except that they are less vivid here. When young, the male and female resemble each other completely, and have no yellow on their faces: this entire part, as well as the front of the neck, the breast, and the flanks, are reddish, like the neck and breast of the adult female and the wing feathers have only slight, rounded edges on the outside. We thought it unnecessary to give the figure of the bird in this state, as the reader can easily get an exact idea by glancing at the plate representing the female, for it would be enough to erase the pure yellow found there and substitute the color of the rest of the face, to have a faithful portrait.

This species is commonly found in Cayenne, Surinam, and generally throughout Guiana, even in Brazil. There is no evidence that it travels, as Brisson believed, to the Illinois (Mississippi River Valley), since no traveler assures me of having found it there. In Cayenne it is called the Wood Louse Parakeet, because it nests in the hives of these insects; at least that is what Buffon reports. We think that the name Illinois Parakeet, which Brisson gave to this species, comes only from the error he made in taking it for the Parakeet said by the ancients to be found in these regions; a species which is in fact only that of our Yellow-headed Parakeet, and which, being found in Carolina and Virginia, may well, in its travels, sometimes pass through the Illinois region.” [Brisson may have confused the species with the Carolina Parrot based on Levaillant’s description.]

Barraband’s work was illustrated as plate 35