In the summer of 1833, John James Audubon, his son and several friends embarked on the schooner Ripley and sailed from Eastport, Maine to Nova Scotia to the St. Lawrence. Audubon kept a detailed diary describing the land, the sea, the vegetation, the people and, above all, the birds that he encountered. Many of the paintings he created along the way are considered his most beautiful and are reproduced here in Audubon's Wilderness Palette.
Many of the birds represented here have become extinct or are threatened. With the strokes of his brush, Audubon has in many ways preserved a natural legacy, permitting those who view his paintings and engravings the opportunity to visit a world that has vanished.
