How to Collect Feather Bird Pictures

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Step 1

Me and my collection

Finding the feather birds:
The Mexican feather birds are fairly easy to find. Friends and family gave me many of the 87 feather bird pictures that cover my walls. I first saw feather bird pictures when my parents brought two of them back from a southwestern vacation in the mid-1950s. Places to find them include yard sales, flea markets, antique shops and now on eBay.
Step 2

Typical carved frames

What to look for:
These birds were made with feathers, except they have hand-painted eyes, beaks, legs and backgrounds. The first ones in my collection are 5-1/2 inches by 11-1/2 inches. Size varies, but usually it's in that range.
Step 3

Types of birds:
A few of my dazzling birds are recognizable, even to my untrained eye. Heading the list would be the ‘good luck birds’, the peacock and his mate, the peahen. Also the male and female Bird of Paradise are often depicted. The rest are so exotic they make me envious of Cortes.
One of these, an extra large one, survived a New Orleans’s hurricane and was given to a friends of ours as a thank you for helping the family clean up the mess. The added story behind this one makes it special to me.
Step 4

A signed Bastian

Background in the pictures:
The rocks and the leaves on the trees are usually painted on a black background. I noticed the background paintings were also divided into two or three different styles. I have only one pair that has an artist’s name on them. Glenn F. Bastian is stamped on the back and his initials are prominently displayed on the front. The background of flowers are much more realistically painted than any of the other pictures.
Step 5

Feather bird in a wicker tray

Frames for the pictures:
The majority of the pictures are in hand-carved cedar frames that are as traditional as the birds themselves. The distinctive carved patterns are repeated in frame after frame with at least five or six different patterns in my almost one ninety picture collection. Now and then I find the pictures in just plain narrow, black frames with a thin, gold stripe. Some are unframed, and my dad framed the first two in Kansas-grown cedar and my son framed another for me in light colored wood.
A few of the birds in my collection are placed under glass in the bottom of oval and rectangle wicker trays of various sizes. Besides being decorative they are very useful and are always a great topic of conversation.
Step 6

Variations in feather bird pictures:
In my collection is a set of four feather bird advertising calendars prints matted with red or turquoise felt-like paper. These were from the 1940s, but it was so early in my collecting career that I was stupid enough to cut off the calendars and advertising. That definitely affects their monetary value. Other oddities that I have includes a feather bird Christmas card and a tiny 2 by 3-inch Mother’s Day gift card.
Step 7

Label on the back of a feather bird picture

Information on feather bird pictures:
On the backs of some of the pictures is a short history or story of Mexican feather craft. These relate, “even before the Spaniards conquered Mexico in 1521, feather craft was already an ancient art. The Tarascan Indians of Michoacan made hummingbird capes for their kings.” To this day, their old capital city is named Tzintzuntzan or the hummingbird.

Birds have always been prominent in Aztec mythology and Mexican history. An eagle perched on a cactus, devouring a snake, is the design of the present official seal. This fulfilled the Aztec prophecy for the establishment of their capital on the present site of Mexico City. Hernando Cortes, the Spanish conqueror, spoke admiringly of the ’feathered jewels’ of the Aztec.
Step 8

Somewhat unusual, fighting cocks

How they're made:
The feather bird art requires great skill, imagination, a lot of patience and an artistic touch to recapture the glamour of the exotic birds. The finished picture vividly recalls the dynamic color and haunting songs of the birds that lived and sang in the ancient forest of Mexico so long ago.

It is a slow process to dress up a paper pattern, starting with the tiniest feathers for the head and gradually increasing in feather size as the body is completed and finishing with the largest feathers forming the magnificent tail.
Step 9

Still made today:
Although the feathers of the wild fowl are no longer used, the tradition is still being followed today. My sister, who lives in Texas, took a trip to old Mexico in 1989 and brought me a feather bird picture that was being right there in the souvenir shop. It has multi-colored brown feathers with pale blue and white feathers on the breast area. This bird has the distinctive black eye patch and solid black neck color that so many of the birds have. The background leaves are just mere varicolored daubs.
Step 10

Value:
I've seen these in antique shops sometimes labeled as Victorian art and with a correspondingly high price. I doubt that they sell very many as there are dozens on eBay.
I’m sure this collection has more value to me as the collector than to anybody else. Since they can be found at such a variety of places and so cheaply, the Mexican Feather Birds seem to have been a passing fad to the American people in the fifties. They are fun to collect since there are so many variations and they are so colorful.

Comments

mymukki said

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on 9/13/2009 how pretty, never saw one of these, will look now!

gailM said

on 6/19/2009 luellataylor thanks for sharing that you have a bird collection too. I sure wish I could find more about the history of these unique pictures.

luellataylor said

on 6/19/2009 i have collected feather bird pictures for many years. I have trays,knick knackboxes. and one special tray made of silver or peuter with the picture under glass love your collectioon