1785-1851

French-American Naturalist and Artist

John James Audubon is famous for the brilliant artistry of his Birds of America and his Viviparous Quadrupeds of America, completed between 1827 and 1854. Audubon was the son of his father's Creole mistress, who died when he was seven months old. He was formally adopted by his father, a French naval officer, and his father's French wife, who educated him at home. He briefly attended Rochefort-Sur-Mer Naval Academy in 1796.

Audubon's earliest drawings date from the year 1805. His claims that he had studied with the French painter Jacques Louis David in 1802-03 are now regarded as invalid by modern biographers. He briefly visited the United States in 1803, and in 1806 began a business career in New York, Kentucky, Missouri, and Louisiana that ended in bankruptcy in 1819. He married Lucy Bakewell in 1808. They had two daughters (both of whom died in infancy) and...