Nicolas Hüet (1770-1830) was one of a family of artists, though arguably the most famous because of his exquisitely detailed natural history studies. The most notable chapter in his career was the years spent as a member of Napoleonic survey of Egypt, between 1798 and 1801, where his work culminated in numerous plates for the Le Description de l'Egypte.
Aside from his Egyptian sojourn, during which he doubtless first studied this particular bird, Hüet and his fellow Egyptian survey artist, Jean Gabriel Prêtre (1768-1849), also contributed a lot of original artwork from which plates were engraved for Nouveau recueil de planches coloriées d'oiseaux: pour servir de suite et de complément aux planches enluminées de Buffon, d'après les dessins de MM. Huet et Prêtre, Peintre attachés au Muséum d'histoire naturelle, by Coenraad Jacob Temminck (1778-1858), published between 1820 and 1839.
The anonymously engraved plate after this particular watercolour bears the French title Bouvreuil Social, or Pyrrhula synoica, the protonym of Carpodacus synoicus, the Sinai Rosefinch, found in Egypt, Israel, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

Finely detailed watercolour on wove paper, signed lower left, 34 x 23 cm. (13 3/8 x 9 in), the original artwork for plate 375 of Temminck's Nouveau recueil de planches coloriées d'oiseaux.