Egyptian Vulture Canvas Print, Dramatic Bird Portrait Wall Art, Fine Art Bird Photography

An Egyptian vulture turned three quarters into the light, bare orange skin over the face, a slim pale bill hooked at the tip, and a ruff of cream feathers standing out from the neck in spikes. Behind it, near black.

Printed and shipped from the US for US orders, and normally from Canada for Canadian orders and from Latvia, inside the EU, for European orders, so buyers in Canada and the EU should not pay customs fees.

The dark ground does the work. With nothing behind the bird, the eye goes where the light goes: along the ridge of the bill, across the folded orange skin, into the dark red eye, and out through the ruff, where every feather separates and catches its own edge of light. It is an old way of lighting a portrait and it suits a face like this one, which is closer to a Dutch painting than to a wildlife photograph.

The species deserves the portrait. It is one of the very few birds known to use a tool, picking up a stone and throwing it at an ostrich egg until the shell gives, a trick young birds learn by watching. The orange of the face is not pigment in the skin so much as diet made visible, and in some populations the birds go further and bathe deliberately in red iron-rich soil to deepen it. It is also in serious trouble, listed as globally endangered, and it carried enough weight in the ancient world to earn its own sign in Egyptian hieroglyphs.

Landscape format. It belongs somewhere with a little gravity, a study, a hallway, a dining room or an office, and it is at its best on a dark or deep coloured wall where the background disappears into the paint.

Each canvas is signed by the photographer in the lower corner.

Sizes
• 16 x 20 in (40.6 x 50.8 cm)
• 18 x 24 in (45.7 x 61 cm)
• 24 x 36 in (61 x 91.4 cm)

Canvas details
• Acid-free, pH-neutral, poly-cotton base
• 20.5 mil (0.5 mm) thick poly-cotton blend canvas
• Canvas fabric weight: 13.9 oz/yd² (470 g/m²)
• Fade-resistant
• Hand-stretched over solid wood stretcher bars
• Matte finish coating
• 1.5 in (3.81 cm) deep
• Mounting brackets included
• Blank product in the EU sourced from Latvia
• Blank product in the US sourced from the US

This canvas is made especially for you when you order, which is why it takes a little longer to arrive. Making to order instead of in bulk helps reduce overproduction, so thank you for choosing thoughtfully.

Yours sincerely,
Crtshots