In “Audubon’s Aviary,” at the New-York Historical Society, there is, in addition to the glorious watercolors and bits of Auduboniana, a black-and-white photograph, dated c. 1912, that shows the fine house John James Audubon and his wife, Lucy Bakewell, built in 1842. Audubon lived there until his death, in 1851.The lot comprised 35 acres, in a neighborhood – more like a country village – called Carmansville, which was part of what we now call Washington Heights.

This photograph shows the Audubons’ charming house looking hopelessly lost. The house, which faced the Hudson River, is crowded visually, loomed over by tall, substantial apartment buildings on Broadway. Around 1912, there were several such scenes throughout the Upper West Side, where holdouts among old country houses and farmhouses cowered before the speculative onslaught of mega-development. (Today, the Audubon estate is occupied in part by the museum complex called Audubon Terrace, and by Trinity Cemetery, where John James Audubon is buried.)

In the same display case is a lovely color lithograph showing the house as it appeared in 1865, looking, I would think, much as it had when Audubon resided there. It’s a scene of bucolic bliss, from the days when Upper Manhattan might have been considered the southernmost part of the Hudson River Valley that painters of the day, not least Audubon’s close collaborator Robert Havell Jr., loved to paint. The Society owns two of Havell’s oil paintings, one of which, “View of the Hudson River From Tarrytown Heights, New York” (c.1850), is in the show.

Also here is a remarkable portrait by Audubon’s son, John Woodhouse Audubon, who lived in his own house on the “Minnie’s Land” estate, as the Audubons’ land was known. Audubon is seated outdoors, in a dramatic natural setting, with foreground foliage and a distant view of river and mountains, and a great swath of swirling clouds. He wears a gray frock coat, waistcoat, trousers, and an open-necked white shirt, and he holds a rifle. Curled at his feet is his dog.

It is said that the elder Audubon fancied himself a Daniel Boone-like character (he even lived in Kentucky at one time), and in this picture he looks like a city man who’s never quite given up this persona. He is clearly on a nature expedition, perhaps at work on “The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America.” By the time of the “Quadrupeds” project, however, the octavo edition of “Birds of America” had allowed Audubon (or soon would allow him) to build that fine house on all that land in what was, in fact, a fashionable place.

I mention these things to see if from this exhibition we may piece together the odd bits that add up to that quintessential 19th-century man, John James Audubon.An illegitimate son of the West Indies, a well-traveled and farcically unsuccessful businessman and frontiersman, Audubon at last drew upon his deepest yearnings to fashion for himself a career and a unique persona that, as much as the pictures themselves, mark out a period of our national history, and our city’s.The 19th was the century of the self-made man, whether it be Audubon, Olmsted, Edison, or Commodore Vanderbilt. In some instances, like that of Vanderbilt, the ascent to the heights came from relentless, steady, focused hard work from a very young age. But in other cases – Olmsted and Audubon, for example – the heights were attained in the most desultory way. As we look back on our national history, nothing, it seems, could be more American than the 19th-century desultory journey to the heights.

What heights Audubon reached are amply evinced by the stunning watercolors that curator Roberta J.M. Olson has brought out of hiding for us this spring. The New-York Historical Society owns the preparatory watercolors for 433 of the 435 plates in “Birds of America.” The fragile nature of these watercolors, however, means that they can’t be put out in the open under lights more than once a decade. So you won’t see these watercolors again for a long while. And they deserve to be seen.

When I reviewed last year’s crop, I made much of the dilemma we face in our appreciation of Audubon’s work.Was he more of an artist than a naturalist, or the other way around? I suggested he was a naturalist with the soul of an artist. It’s easy to see how he could love these birds, all of them gorgeous and subtly imbued by Audubon with personalities by turns delightful and rather frightening. As to the latter, “Audubon’s Aviary” shows variant depictions of a bald eagle pounced on its prey. In one image, said prey is a goose, in the other a catfish.

In both, the ferocity brings to mind the French animaliers for whom sublime nature was soaked in blood. The viewer of these Audubon watercolors need only walk across to the Central Park mall to see the French sculptor Christophe Fratin’s “Eagles and Prey,” done around 1850, to see what I mean. Elsewhere, though, the depictions of birds may evoke Sargent portraits or Rowlandson caricatures.

The condition of these watercolors seems excellent, their colors beaming across the gallery. The picture showing the western tanager and the scarlet tanager is a tour de force of vivid coloration, with its reds, blacks, yellows, and yellow-greens. The birds themselves are so vibrantly hued only at certain times of year or under certain conditions, and under the right light. Audubon could have depicted them as accurately in more muted tones, yet chose not to. His birds are like fashion-plates from Vogue. No less scientifically interesting for that, but more aesthetically appealing.

The Minnie’s Land house, forlorn against its apartment-building backdrop, is a powerful image of the 20th century pushing out the 19th. The 20th century has its peculiar glories, to be sure. One of them is sound recording, and bird song resounds through the gallery. If that seems gimmicky, think again.

Audubon was as fascinated by birds’ songs as he was by their appearance. But he had no means of capturing the songs. We do, and it honors Audubon that these sounds should accompany the pictures. It’s a little stroke of genius, actually. That said, it’s hard to imagine that Audubon could have achieved what he did in any century but the one that gave us these not-to-be-missed watercolors.

Until May 7 (170 Central Park West, 212-873-3400).