Come and check out our pigeon art! We promise it’s Coo (coo)! We discovered three beautiful public domain books on pigeons and restored the illustrations.
Pigeons (Columbidae)
Did you know that pigeons and doves are the same birds? Generally, at least in English, “doves” refers to smaller species and “pigeons” refers to larger ones. Pigeons almost always lay two eggs. This is called a clutch and pigeons generally produce 5 clutches a year. Furthermore, young pigeons are called squabs.
And here’s a weird fact we didn’t know. Both sexes of pigeons produce something known as ‘crop milk’ or ‘pigeon milk’ to feed their young. The crop is a muscular pouch near the throat of a pigeon and is part of the bird’s digestive system.
Fancy Pigeons (1887)
Anyway, on to the illustrations! First, we’d like to share an 1887 British pigeon breeding guide titled Fancy pigeons : containing full directions for their breeding and management, with descriptions of every known variety … While the book itself is quite text heavy, the 18 color illustrations are certainly worth it. These are some birds with personality!
Illustrirtes Mustertauben-Buch (1884)
Illustrirtes Mustertauben-Buch : enthaltend das Gesammte der Taubenzucht (1884) is a German pigeon breeding guide with 81 illustrations. Unlike their British counterparts above, these pigeons have a darker, more stoic aesthetic. The pages contain small groupings of 2-3 pigeons on each page, and we were able to separate many of the birds from the backgrounds and each other.
Illustriertes Prachtwerk sämtlicher Tauben-rassen (1906)
Illustriertes Prachtwerk sämtlicher Tauben-rassen (1906) might be the most interesting book, containing 100 illustrations including the ridiculous puffed up pigeon images below. We probably won’t work on many drawings from this book because the images are already beautiful as compositions and it’s infeasible separating the overlapping birds from each other.
Bonus Trivia
Curious objects called Peristeriums or Eucharistic doves were hung over the altar in medieval churches. They resembled doves and contained a flap in the back that could be opened to house consecrated hosts. Not only was this a practical measure as it kept the hosts safe from mice, but it also created an impressive display.
If you enjoyed these pigeons, check out our rather GORGEOUS pigeon collection, which features 12 illustrations from Fancy Pigeons (1887) and an additional 16 illustrations from Illustrirtes Mustertauben-Buch (1884).
