Reduced to “cabinet skins”?
The Artdog Image of Interest, Image 3 of a planned series of four by John James Audubon Eskimo Curlew, 1833, by John James Audubon In my opinion, this is one of the weirder compositions Audubon produced. Although he always had to work from dead specimens, having either shot them himself (then posed them propped up on wires) or having received skins (as with the Bachman’s Warbler last week), he almost never portrayed them as dead, unless shown as prey of an avian predator. However, in this one the female is laid…