William Henry Hunt, A Dead Kingfisher, c. 1838

A Dead Kingfisher

Private Collection

Watercolor heightened with bodycolor and scratching out

3 15/16 X 4 5/8 inches, 4.8 X 12.8 cm

Signed, l.r. W. HUNT

 

Provenance:

(S) Christie's South Kensington, 28 Mar 2002, Lot 129 [along with Still Life of Two Sea Shells on a Mossy Bank] (P) £ 2,115 Chris Beetles, Ltd., from which purchased by the present owner for £2,450

 

Exhibited:

Winter 1864, Society of Painters in Water-Colours, no. 397, A Dead Bird, lent by W. Collingwood Smith, Esq.

 

 

This paintings of a brilliantly colored and very dead kingfisher by William Henry Hunt is one of the smallest, if not the very smallest, finished watercolor by the artist. Although Hunt painted dead birds and game throughout his career, it is often difficult to tell where any particular work of this type fits in his oeuvre. The earliest examples include a watercolor showing a dead hare and other game, dated 1825 (fig. ) and a couple of paintings of dead woodcocks which once belonged to John Ruskin and which are now are at the Ashmolean Museum of the University of Oxford [part of Ruskin's Rudamentary series which was bequeathed to Oxford by it's famous alumnus]. One is dated 1825, very early for any still life by Hunt. The other, showing two woodcocks and very similar in appearance to the dated work was described by Ruskin as being in the artist's "fully developed manner." This would imply that it was a later work, since Hunt's style was far from fully formed in 1825. Nonetheless, Witt, in his catalogue of some of the artist's works, seemed hard pressed to find anything which would justify a later date and, despite a short discussion on the issue of dating Hunt's watercolors, finally just assigns a date of c. 1825, based on the overall similarity of the two works.

 

When I first saw this watercolor, which is very similar in it's simple depiction of a dead bird against a neutral background, I immediately concluded that it must also have been painted in the mid-1820s, i.e., one of the earliest still life compositions in the artist's career. But I now believe that it was probably painted in the late 1830s, based on a discussion by Hunt's fellow artist and friend from Hastings, William Collingwood.

 

In his remeniscences of William Henry Hunt, published in the Magazine of Art in 1895, Collingwood states that he first met John Hornby Maw in 1838 and that Maw soon thereafter introduced him to Hunt. Later in the article, Collingwood tells an anecdote about a painting of a dead kingfisher which Hunt brought, shortly after it was painted, to a location frequented by Collingwood and other watercolor artists. Unfortunately, Collingwood does not specifically identify where he first saw this watercolor, which might have been of use in determining an approximate date. But one fact seems certain: the watercolor described in the following excerpt from Collingwood's article had to be painted no earlier than 1838, when the two artists apparently first met.

 

 

Sir John Witt identified another watercolor of a dead kingfisher, which was probably the one exhibited by Hunt at the Spring Exhibition of 1840, as being the picture described by Collingwood. This picture, which was on the art market in 2010, is badly faded, but it is still apparent that the subject never had a brilliantly colored, emerald green head. The present work, however, matches Collingwood's description precisely, right down to the mosaic like bits of color which can only be seen on very close inspection in the head of the bird.

 

It is interesting that William Collingwood's cousin, the artist W. Collingwood Smith, apparently owned this work in 1864, when he lent it to a posthumous showing of works by Hunt at the Winter Exhibition of the Watercolour Society.

 

 

 

Done