Classic bird paintings

Barn Swallow painting: Audubon's plate and other classic portraits

John James Audubon painted the Barn Swallow as plate 173 of The Birds of America (1827–38), a pair with their nest, under the same name. A free high-resolution scan is on Audubon.org. The swallows shown here are from John Gould's The Birds of Europe (1832–37), where he called them Chimney Swallows.

Updated

Two Barn Swallows with dark blue backs, rust-red throats and long forked tails perched on a bare twig
Barn Swallows, from John Gould's The Birds of Europe, where he called them Chimney Swallows. John and Elizabeth Gould, The Birds of Europe (1832–37)

About this painting

This pair is plate 54 of John Gould's The Birds of Europe (1832–37), the Chimney Swallow. Audubon believed the American bird was the same as Europe's Chimney Swallow, and AviList, the shared world checklist, treats them as one species today: the Barn Swallow.

Audubon’s Barn Swallow: plate 173, “Barn Swallow”

Audubon painted the pair in their best spring plumage, with a nest taken from a rafter of a New Jersey barn that held at least twenty nests.

Near Eastport, Maine, on May 7, 1833, he saw Barn Swallows hunting beside Cliff Swallows “while masses of ice hung from every cliff.” That June, on the Magdalen Islands, he found them building nests in the open cupola of a church. Off East Florida, the officers of the US schooner Spark showed him huge flocks flying a few feet above the water for nearly an hour, circling the ship as if lost.

Story: Audubon’s Ornithological Biography, vol. 2 (1834). See plate 173 free at Audubon.org.

More classic portraits, free to see

  • John James Audubon, The Birds of America, octavo edition (1840–44), plate 48: “Barn or Chimney Swallow”. Free scan (New York Public Library Digital Collections)
  • John and Elizabeth Gould, The Birds of Europe (1832–37), plate 54: “Chimney Swallow” (the painting shown above). Free scan (University of Kansas Libraries)
  • John Gould’s The Birds of Great Britain (1862–73), vol. 2, plate 5: “Swallow”. Free scan (University of Kansas Libraries)
  • Louis Agassiz Fuertes, for Elon H. Eaton’s Birds of New York (1910–14), plate 88: “Barn Swallow”, with 5 other birds. Free scan (Internet Archive)

About the Barn Swallow

The oldest known wild Barn Swallow lived at least 10 years: it was banded in Maryland in 2006 and found there again in 2015. That is a record from bird banding, not a typical lifespan. (Source: USGS Bird Banding Laboratory, 2025 longevity table.) How long do wild birds live?

Buying a print?

An original plate 173 is a hand-colored sheet about 26 by 38 inches, printed in Britain in 1827–38; many prints sold today are reproductions or small 1840s octavo prints. How to tell an original from a reproduction.

In a Birdfolio, the hardcover book of your own life list, this painting sits beside the Barn Swallow with the date and place you first saw one. See your own list as a book, free.