Turdoide ensanglanté, male [current name: Flame-throated Bulbul. Rubigula gularis]

Prêtre was born in Geneva but pursued his career in France as a painter and draftsman of natural history subjects. He joined the Napoleonic survey of Europe between 1798-1801 and some of his drawings were then engraved to illustrate Le Description de l'Egypte (1809-29). From this point forward he collaborated on various projects with Nicolas Huet the younger (1770-1830), also part of the survey team, then appointed painter to the Muséeum d'Historie Naturelle (Natural History Museum) and to the ménagerie of the Empress Josephine. This watercolor of a Flame-thrated Bulbol, a bird endemic to south-western India, was the basis of a hand-colored engraving published in Nouveau recueil de planches coloriées d'oiseaux: pour servir de suite et de complément aux planches enluminées de Buffon [New collection of colored plates of birds: to serve as a sequel and complement to Buffon’s illuminated plates...1770]. The latter publication expanded upon a seminal multi-volume work edited by Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (1707-1788), Louis XVI's director of the Jardin du Roi. This drawing relates to a print in the Nouveau recueil, volume 2 (1838), p. 204, plate 137.