CONTINENTAL SCHOOL, Circa 1800
A Concert of Birds
watercolor on woven paper with the watermark WHAT (MAN)
377 x 488 mm.
PROVENANCE
Mortimer Brandt, New York until 1993 and
thus, by descent in the family to
Private Collection, Baltimore until 2025
Among the most popular subjects painted by Frans Snyders were his concert of birds. He produced numerous variations on this theme mainly in the 1620s and 30s. These scenes also proved extremely popular among his followers. This work with variations is closest in composition to a painting in the Hermitage attributed to Mario Nuzzi and disseminated by a Richard Earlom print.[1]
Very strikingly, both in temperament and song, an unharmonious group of widely differing species as well as one bat, are depicted. It is not an assortment that would assemble naturally. Such variety in these works that include birds with harsh calls may allude to the Dutch proverb: “Elck vogetlge singt soo’t gebekt is” meaning “Each bird sings with his own beak”, or “Every bird sings the way he knows how”. This was a popular theme in emblematic literature.[2]
Depicted on the sheet are 29 birds including a peacock, king fisher, swallow, jay, parrot, hoopoe, partridge, doves, heron, sandpiper, bullfinch, thrush, swan, and magpie among others, plus one bat.[3] Starting in the Netherlands during the seventeenth century, imported exotic birds were sought after by the wealthy as a status symbol. The rich maintained large menageries and natural history collections. This led to a passion among the landed gentry for paintings of exotic and indigenous birds often featured in the same work, a tradition that was carried forth well into the ongoing centuries.[4]
The watermark on the sheet of this drawing is that of J Whatman who invented wove paper in the 1750s prior to which all paper was laid. Such paper produced a smooth regular surface as opposed to the more irregular texture of laid paper. Based in Kent the firm became renowned throughout the world for the quality of their paper. It is the same paper John James Audubon used for his Birds of America.[5]
Mortimer Brandt was a leading dealer in Old Master paintings and drawings. He was based in New York from 1937 – 1969 and afterwards moved to London.
[1] “Circle of Frans Snyder, Concert of Birds” on Nationalmuseum, Sweden at collection.nationalmuseum.se/en/collection; and “A Concert of Birds, 18th Century” on rkd.nl (RKD Explore).
[2] Roger J, Lederer, The Art of the Bird, The University of Chicago Press, 2019, p. 21; and Nationalmuseum Sweden, op.cit.
[3] “A Concert of Birds, 18th Century” on rkd.nl, op.cit.
[4] Joy Kearney, “Ornithology and Collecting in the Dutch Golden Age: the Collecting of Exotica and Captured Specimens” in Collecting Nature, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle upon Tyne, 2014, pp. 67, 69, 70, 72.
[5] Ana Norman, “A Guide to the Watermarks and Paper Types Found in Audubon’s Havell edition of The Birds of America” May 26. 2023, at www.audubonart.com.