Mid 20th Century Framed Print of Greenland Falcon, Joseph Wolf, From "Traité De Fauconnerie"

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A mid-20th-century framed print of Joseph Wolf's celebrated white Greenland falcon hooded and perched on a falconer's gloved fist. The … Read more A mid-20th-century framed print of Joseph Wolf's celebrated white Greenland falcon hooded and perched on a falconer's gloved fist. The plate reproduces Wolf's design from Schlegel & Verster van Wulverhorst's Traité de Fauconnerie (Leiden & Düsseldorf: Arnz & Comp., 1844–1853), long regarded as the finest falconry book ever produced and was “one of the first major works to demonstrate the talent of the wildlife painter Joseph Wolf.”

This attractive print retains the original French inscriptions — "Dessiné par M. Wolf," "Le Groënlandais, faucon blanc mué," and "Publié chez A. Arnz et Comp. à Leide" — together with an English plate caption ("Plate 27 / Greenland Falcon in hood / [Schlegel]") added by the later publisher, typical of collected mid-century natural-history volumes.

The composition is quietly dramatic: the pure white falcon, delicately spotted with grey-black across the wing, wears a plumed leather hood and sits atop a gloved arm. Handsomely presented in a rustic weathered-wood frame with a white inner lip.

The original 1844 image was recently listed at auction Sotheby’s for 30,000 to 40,000 pounds (see the link below). The print here was produced later, but I cannot pin down the precise date. My best estimates based on the framing suggest 1950-1970.

Provenance: From a Vermont estate, framed by Boutilier's Custom Picture Framing, 112 Church Street, Burlington, VT (the shop's earlier address; est. 1925), with the original paper dust cover and wire hanger intact. To me this points to a an original unaltered framing from roughly the 1950s–1970s. See less