Plate 298
Havell XXXIX
Crested Titmouse
(Parus bicolor)
Several of Audubon’s birds closely resemble figures in Alexander Wilson’s American Ornithology. Wilson showed Audubon the first two volumes of his work in March 1810, when they met by chance in Louisville, Kentucky. Four months later Audubon made a drawing of a tufted titmouse in the same pose as a titmouse in Wilson’s publication. Twelve years later, in Louisiana or Mississippi, Audubon made the watercolor shown here, with the topmost bird still reminiscent of Wilson’s. The white pine bough is the work of Joseph Mason, one of Audubon’s painting assistants.
Source: The Original Water-Color Paintings by John James Audubon. Copyright 1966 by American Heritage Publishing Co., Inc.
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