Giclee reprint of an original lithograph from John Gould’s A monograph of the Trochilidae, or family of humming-birds, published in London between 1849 and 1861.
 
John Gould’s A Monograph of the Trochilidae, or Family of Humming-Birds (1849–1861) is widely considered his ultimate masterwork and the pinnacle of 19th-century ornithological illustration.

John Gould discovered and first described this bird in 1846. Because its anatomy stood out so dramatically from other hummingbirds, he created an entirely new, single-species (monotypic) genus specifically to classify it. It is native exclusively to the humid cloud forests, dense understories, and damp mountain ravines of Venezuela and northeastern Colombia. It is highly solitary and fiercely territorial. Rather than sharing food sources, a single Violet-chested Hummingbird will actively patrol and defend a personal patch of Heliconia flowers from all intruders.