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Lot Essay
Schouman was himself a keen naturalist. His studies of animals reveal a profound interest in zoology and their quality was widely recognized. He was a frequent visitor to natural history cabinets where he studied exotic animals, either from life, or probably more often as stuffed or dried specimens. According to the inscription on the verso of the present drawing Schouman made it in 1786 from a kangaroo mouse in the collection of Arnout Vosmaer (1720-1799). Thirty years earlier Vosmaer had sold his entire collection to the widow of Prince Willem IV, Princess Anna of Hanover, who then appointed Vosmaer Director of the Royal Natural History and Art Cabinets and Zoological Collections in The Hague (L.J. Bol, Aert Schouman: Ingenious painter and draughtsman, Doornspijk, 1991, pp. 81-4). So it must have been there that Schouman made the present drawing under the supervision of Vosmaer. The two must have known each other well since Schouman contributed the majority of the illustrations for Vosmaer’s Regnum Animale, published in serial form between 1766 and 1804.
The combination of almost scientific accuracy and pronounced artistic skill for which Schouman’s paintings and drawings of animals acquired their deserved acclaim is clear in this study. It is Schouman's only known depiction of the creature, whose name alludes to its extraordinary jumping ability. The kangaroo mouse was probably imported from its native America and seen by the artist as a preserved specimen. As was typical of Schouman’s attempts to give an indication of an animal’s native habitat in his work, the kangaroo mouse is shown standing in an open grassy landscape formed with light washes of blue, green and brown watercolour.
The combination of almost scientific accuracy and pronounced artistic skill for which Schouman’s paintings and drawings of animals acquired their deserved acclaim is clear in this study. It is Schouman's only known depiction of the creature, whose name alludes to its extraordinary jumping ability. The kangaroo mouse was probably imported from its native America and seen by the artist as a preserved specimen. As was typical of Schouman’s attempts to give an indication of an animal’s native habitat in his work, the kangaroo mouse is shown standing in an open grassy landscape formed with light washes of blue, green and brown watercolour.