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A Snipe

Maker

(artist)
1694-1773

Title

A Snipe

Date of Production

(circa) 1750

Medium

graphite, watercolour and bodycolour on laid paper

Dimensions

Height: 25.4 cm
Width: 20.2 cm

Accession Number

D.1967.WS.41

Mode of Acquisition

William Wycliffe Spooner, bequest, 1967

Credit

The Courtauld, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust)

Copyright

Work in the public domain

Location

Not currently on display

Keywords

Label Text

George Edwards’s seven volumes of A Natural History of Uncommon Birds (1743-51) and Gleanings of Natural History (1758-64), containing 362 hand-coloured etchings, gained him an international reputation as an ornithologist and bird illustrator. His finely detailed watercolours were used as models for the plates, although this image of a snipe was apparently not published. He generally placed birds and insects in their natural habitat: here bull rushes and water indicate marshland. A dragonfly has been added to fill up what he referred to as the ‘naked spaces’ on the paper.

Notes

The number inscribed at the top right of this watercolour suggests that it may have been a design for a plate in his illustrated work 'A Natural History of Common Birds...' (1743-51) or for an album of drawings, but the subject of a snipe or heatherbleater (a Scottish/Irish folk name) appears nowhere in his published works. In an essay entitled 'A Brief and General Idea of Drawings and Painting in Water Colours, intended for the Amusement of the Curious, rather than for the Instructions of the Artists' Edwards favoured the use of bodycolour, which he likened to painting. He recommended avoiding pure white or black to 'dull' colour, which in nature is rarely pure. His strict instructions that deep shadows must have black or brown added 'to give them their natural obscurity', and that light spaces should be left around dark foreground objects 'such as a clear opening in a landscape, either the earth, hills, or sky', are closely followed in this drawing.

Provenance

C.A. Earnshaw, London; purchased from him by Colnaghi (London) 12 September 1958; purchased there by Mrs Mary Spooner, 24 September 1958 (£25); Spooner Bequest 1967

Exhibition History

British Watercolours from the Spooner Collection, Huntington Museum and Art Gallery, Los Angeles, 12/02/2005-15/05/2005

British Watercolours from the Spooner Collection, Huntington Museum of Art, Los Angeles, 12/02/2005-15/05/2005; Wordsworth Trust, Grasmere, 18/07/2005-23/10/2005; Hermitage Rooms, Somerset House, London, 16/11/2005-12/02/2006 ...More

Masters of the Watercolour - Watercolours from the Spooner
Collection, Holburne Museum of Art, Bath, 1969 ...Less

Literature

Masters of the Watercolour - Watercolours from the Spooner Collection, Holburne Museum of Art, Bath, 1969
cat. no. 28

The Spooner Collection of British Watercolours, Courtauld Institute Galleries; Huntington Library; Wordsworth Trust, 2005-06
cat. no. 2
ill. on p. 77

Inscriptions

Watermark: Watermark: Recto, right centre edge, fragment: tops of letters "VI" (see sketch in object file).

Collector's mark: none.

Inscription: Recto: upper right corner, graphite: “42“; upper left, graphite: “Woodcock“; , upper right, graphite: “Snipe. or / Heatherbleater.“. Verso: lower left edge, graphite: “Woodcock“; lower centre edge, graphite, cut off at bottom, Colnaghi number: “A23057“.

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