Anyone who has ever watched Antiques Roadshow dreams of stumbling across a hidden treasure in a dusty attic. Descendants of the 18th-century plantation owner John Drayton did exactly that, finding a portfolio of watercolors on the top floor of a family member’s house in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1969. A team of experts later identified the paintings as rare, original works by the celebrated British ornithologist and artist George Edwards, painted in 1733.

In 2011, a fundraising campaign that included a gift from Ben and Cindy Lenhardt allowed Drayton Hall (John Drayton’s Palladian house in Charleston and a National Trust Historic Site), to acquire 21 of the watercolors from the Drayton family, which made them available at half their market value. “They were clearly a very early purchase or gift—probably a gift—from George Edwards to John Drayton, his North American benefactor,” says Sarah Stroud Clarke, archaeologist and curator of collections at Drayton Hall. Among the birds depicted in this series are the bald eagle, the red-winged blackbird, and the Carolina parrot. Their physical attributes are rendered with a scientist’s precision and an artist’s flair. “In person, they shimmer, almost like a bird’s feathers would,” Clarke says.