Audubon crowds this plate with seven Carolina parakeets — feeding, calling, climbing a cocklebur branch in a tangle of green, red, and yellow — the only parrot species ever native to the eastern United States, and one Audubon himself already worried was thinning under relentless hunting for the millinery trade and orchard-protection shooting. His fear proved exact: the species was declared extinct in 1918, when the last known bird, a captive named Incas, died in the same Cincinnati Zoo cage that had held the last passenger pigeon four years earlier. What to notice: this is now less an illustration than a document — the only way most people will ever see what a flock of Carolina parakeets actually looked like alive, painted by a man who had no idea he was recording something that would vanish within his own children's lifetimes.

Maker: John James Audubon (engraved by Robert Havell Jr.)
Date: 1828
Medium of the original: Engraving
Original held by: Wikimedia Commons
Credit: Wikimedia Commons
Rights: Public domain, verified
Catalogue number: PA-00279

As chosen: 8 x 12 in, art print, classic frame
Picture	8 x 12 in
Outside size	9.6 x 13.6 in
Depth	0.9 in (22 mm)
Weight	[[REAL PROOF NEEDED: shipped weight per size and frame]]
Hanging	[[REAL PROOF NEEDED: hanging hardware Prodigi fits to this frame]]
Material	Enhanced matte art paper, 200 gsm; acrylic glazing
Made in	Charlotte, North Carolina, by Prodigi

Before a size goes on sale, the file is measured against it: pixels per inch at that size, how much of the picture a crop would lose, tone and sharpness. A size that fails is not offered, so there is nothing to choose wrong.

How the print check works

Sizes offered
Size	dpi	Grade	How it fits
8 x 12 in	183	Good	Trimmed 4.1%

Sizes withheld
Size	Why
8 x 10 in	Wrong shape: a 13% crop
11 x 14 in	Wrong shape: a 11% crop
12 x 16 in	127 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged
12 x 18 in	122 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged
16 x 20 in	Wrong shape: a 13% crop
16 x 24 in	91 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged
18 x 24 in	85 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged
20 x 30 in	73 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged
24 x 30 in	Wrong shape: a 13% crop
24 x 36 in	61 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged
30 x 40 in	51 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged
36 x 48 in	42 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged
40 x 60 in	36 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged

Scanned: 2026-10-07
Master file: 1,530 x 2,200 px, srgb
Tone: Darks 32, lights 249 of 255; 0% clipped light, 0% clipped dark
Colour: 0% vivid
Sharpness: 16.51