A male Northern Cardinal in full song on a berried branch, in the restrained palette of John James Audubon’s Birds of America: soft clouded cream ground, the crimson body and raised crest carrying the whole plate.

The cardinal is the only common North American bird that wears the same livery in summer and winter, that does not migrate, and that pair-bonds for years. A cardinal print is, accidentally, a print about staying.

Three sizes, museum-grade paper.

Sizes and prices

Size	Dimensions	Price
A4	21 x 29.7 cm	€38
A3	29.7 x 42 cm	€58
A2	42 x 59.4 cm	€92

Paper

Hahnemuhle Photo Rag 308gsm. Acid-free, 100 per cent cotton, archival rating exceeds 100 years under standard framing conditions. The natural off-white tone of the rag holds the cream-and-navy palette without the cold blue-white that some bright photographic papers produce.

Edition

Open edition. The print is reissued as demand requires. Each print is numbered sequentially within its size.

Shipping

Rolled in an acid-free archival tube. Tracked international delivery from Ireland. Standard dispatch is within three working days of order. Customs duty for shipments outside the EU is the recipient’s responsibility.

What you are buying

A Cardinal pair in the Birds of America tradition. The composition follows Audubon’s compositional logic of two birds at slightly different elevations on a single botanical branch, with a soft middle-distance landscape behind. The palette is deliberately restrained - cream, navy, sage, the cardinal’s red, the dogwood white - so the print sits well on most walls without fighting the existing colour scheme.

The bird is a real species, and the composition takes its reference from Audubon’s own 1827 plate 159 of the Northern Cardinal. It is not a copy of that plate. The lineage is honest about its inheritance.

How to frame it

• Mount. A 5 cm cream or off-white mount works best. Avoid pure white, which competes with the cream of the sky.
• Frame. Thin natural-wood frame. Avoid black frames - they fight the warmth of the cream paper. Avoid heavy gilt frames - they fight the restraint of the palette.
• Glass. Standard glazing is fine. Museum glass with anti-reflective coating is a worthwhile upgrade for prints hung opposite windows.
• Light. Indirect daylight is ideal. Direct sun on the print will, over years, fade the colours. The Hahnemuhle paper is archival to about 100 years in standard framing; direct sun reduces that significantly.

Pairing

The natural companion prints are the American Robin Print and the Ruby-throated Hummingbird Print. All three share the same style and palette and hang well at consistent height with 15 cm of wall between them.

For a set: the Songbirds Set is a curated four-print collection including the Cardinal, Robin, Cedar Waxwing and Eastern Bluebird.

About the bird

The Northern Cardinal is the state bird of seven US states, more than any other species. He does not migrate. The female sings nearly as much as the male, which is unusual in North American songbirds. The pair stays together year-round and often across multiple years. The male’s red comes not from genetics alone but from carotenoid pigments absorbed through his autumn diet, which means a well-fed cardinal in October becomes a brighter cardinal the following March.

Full natural history at the Northern Cardinal field guide.

About the meaning

In modern North American folk tradition the cardinal is associated with the return of a departed loved one. The phrase “cardinals appear when angels are near” is not scriptural - it appears to be late-twentieth-century folk wisdom - but the symbolism functions for millions of people regardless. Native American traditions associate the bird with renewal and faithful partnership. Both readings are at home in the print.

Full cross-cultural treatment at Cardinal symbolism and spiritual meaning.

Size	Dimensions	Price
A4	21 x 29.7 cm	€38
A3	29.7 x 42 cm	€58
A2	42 x 59.4 cm	€92

Printed on Hahnemuhle Photo Rag 308gsm.