New Guinea

Antique New Guinea Bird Prints

This category features original antique prints capturing the remarkable birdlife of New Guinea, one of the world’s most biodiverse avian environments. New Guinea’s rich assemblage of species — from birds-of-paradise and parrots to honeyeaters and ground dwellers — inspired early naturalists and artists to document its fauna during the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Many of these prints were created as engraved or lithographed plates in landmark natural history publications and scientific works, where field sketches by explorers and ornithologists were translated into detailed, hand-coloured images. Illustrators in this tradition sought to balance scientific accuracy with aesthetic composition, producing works that communicated both form and character of the species.

Antique bird prints of New Guinea are prized for their historical significance, artistic quality and the insight they provide into species that were little-known in Europe at the time of documentation. As original period works on paper, they are sought after by collectors, historians and bird enthusiasts interested in the visual legacy of natural history illustration.