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Your galleryPurple Heron (Ardea purpurea)
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Follow the long neck down from the pointed beak, noticing how each feather is drawn, to the scaly legs and the toes spread on the bare paper.
In the late 1700s and early 1800s, Indian artists in Kolkata, then the seat of British power in India, painted local birds, animals and plants for British collectors, at a time when natural history was in fashion. Museums call such pictures Company School, after the British East India Company. The Art Institute of Chicago dates this watercolor about 1780 to 1820. The heron, named in the title by its scientific name, Ardea purpurea, stands alone on a large sheet of watermarked paper.
Watercolor on watermarked paper · 63.5 × 47.8 cm · Art Institute of Chicago
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Details and source
- Museum title
- Purple Heron (Ardea purpurea)
- Artist
- India West Bengal, Kolkata
- Date
- Company School, c. 1780-1820
- Medium
- Watercolor on watermarked paper
- Dimensions
- 63.5 × 47.8 cm (25 × 18 3/4 in.)
- Credit line
- Asian Purchase Campaign Endowment
- Image license
- CC0 1.0 · Public domain
- Museum record
- Art Institute of Chicago
Galler’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.