In the world of 18th-cen­tury sci­entif­ic illus­tra­tion, women were often releg­ated to the back­ground, primar­ily work­ing as col­or­ists. Mad­dalena Bouchard (c. 1772 – c. 1793; her exact dates remain unknown), how­ever, shattered these bound­ar­ies. She was one of the very few women of her era to mas­ter the tech­nic­ally demand­ing craft of cop­per­plate engrav­ing at a pro­fes­sion­al level.

Mad­dalena was a des­cend­ant of the influ­en­tial French pub­lish­ing dyn­asty, Bouchard, which moved from Lyon to Rome in the 18th cen­tury. In the “Etern­al City,” the fam­ily — togeth­er with the Gravi­ers — oper­ated one of the most sig­ni­fic­ant book­stores and pub­lish­ing houses for sci­entif­ic mas­ter­pieces. Mad­dalena was thus con­nec­ted at the very heart of intel­lec­tu­al Rome, where art met rig­or­ous sci­ence.

133 Birds: The „Recueil des Oiseaux“

While many of her con­tem­por­ar­ies lim­ited them­selves to stat­ic depic­tions, Mad­dalena breathed life into her sub­jects. In her 1784 work, Recueil de Cent-Trente-Trois Oiseaux (A Col­lec­tion of 133 Birds), she cre­ated a vibrant mena­ger­ie across 87 plates.

Her engrav­ings — often proudly signed “Mad­dalena Bouchard sculp.” — depict exot­ic par­rots, song­birds, and birds of prey with a bril­liance that tran­scends mere doc­u­ment­a­tion. These hand-colored prints are char­ac­ter­ized by a lumin­os­ity unusu­al for the peri­od, mak­ing the birds appear almost like “fly­ing gems” upon the paper.

An Exceptional Figure

The fact that a woman played a cent­ral role in such an extens­ive pro­ject was an abso­lute anom­aly. Mad­dalena Bouchard was no hob­by­ist; she was a pro­fes­sion­al artis­an in a male-dom­in­ated mar­ket. Today, her works are not only valu­able to orni­tho­lo­gists but also stand as a monu­ment to female cre­ativ­ity and skill dur­ing the Enlight­en­ment.

Text: Ger­hard Groebe | All images: Pub­lic domain

Gal­lery with Examples from „Recueil de Cent-Trente-Trois Oiseaux“:

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