A rare suite of early 19th Century Regency period watercolours of Indian birds – AA1830

Nineteen exquisite ornithological subjects, painted by a visitor to the sub-continent in the 1820’s. The representations are anatomically correct and accurate in scale, yet all of these finely executed watercolours – by an unknown but clearly gifted artist – manage to display strong individual character, painstakingly cut as silhouettes and laid down on eleven contemporary folio album pages (510 x 290 mm each) in the style of decoupage, all but three of the specimens with an accompanying contemporary manuscript label cut and pasted onto the page beside it, all the illustrations in an excellent state of preservation, the colours still vibrant, the paper stable, some residual tape marks to corners and margins of the sheets which do not detract, one of the captions identifying a location (Bellary, in Karnataka, southwest India) and a date (January 1828).

The manuscript labels read as follows:

Black-headed Oriole Mango bird. Lark. Alanda sp. The birds appear in October in immense flocks and depart in March – often mistaken for Ortolans.Plover. Water Wagtail. Eagle. Shot at Bellany Jan 1828. Breadth from Wing to Wing 6 feet. Half size. Falco Sp. Chysactos. Spur Foul: Tetrao sp. Partridge. Short tail Tern. Water Wagtail. Bansputtah or Bamboo Frequenter. Common Florican. Stone Chat. Malacilla Rubicola. Three-toed Quail (male and female). Golden Oriole. Female. Golden Oriole. Male. Grey Shrike. Female. Lanius Sinerius.

Framed by Vicki Hutchins.