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Case file s1762 · Literature and art · 1851
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1851
John Woodhouse Audubon: John Woodhouse Audubon
John Woodhouse Audubon. FROM THE MINIATURE BY F. CRUIKSHANK, 1838.. Public domain, Wikimedia Commons.
Died
27 January 1851
Place
New York City · United States
Field
painter, ornithologist · Visual art and architecture on the timeline
Legal tradition
US common law (widow's property) · Common law
Historical event
American Civil War finances; the New-York Historical Society purchase of Audubon's watercolors, 1863
Literature and artIndustry and empireNorth AmericaUnited States

Audubon's widow sold the Birds of America copper plates in 1870 and buyers melted most of them for scrap

John James Audubon had 435 copper plates engraved, mostly by Robert Havell Jr. of London from 1827 to 1838, to print The Birds of America. Each plate was about two by three feet and weighed up to 37 pounds. After he died in 1851 the plates passed to his widow, Lucy Audubon. In 1863 she sold the original watercolors to the New-York Historical Society for $4,000. The plates did not sell. In 1870 an advertisement for her offered 350 plates "to be sold to the highest bidder." The New York Times reported in 1871 that they had been sold for their value as old copper after finding no buyer for their artistic merit. Most were melted. In 1873 a teenager, Charles Cowles, pulled the Black Vulture plate from a furnace at his father's refinery in Connecticut. A 1974 count found about 78 plates, and Yale's Peabody Museum holds five. Two plates given to a Hartford museum went into a World War II metal drive. On 7 December 2010 a complete copy of the book sold at Sotheby's London for about $11.5 million, a record for a printed book at auction.

What the law took from it

Heirs who cannot sell a work for its worth may sell it for its materials, and the loss is permanent.

Sources
  1. yalealumnimagazine.comPress
  2. digitalcollections2.nyhistory.orgPress
  3. guinnessworldrecords.comPress
  4. NBC NewsPress

Cite as: celebrity.estate, “Audubon's widow sold the Birds of America copper plates in 1870 and buyers melted most of them for scrap,” story s1762, https://www.celebrity.estate/audubon-1851, updated 30 October 2026.

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Where this case sits

Literature and artIndustry and empireNorth AmericaCommon lawUnited States