Pigeon and Nestlings

This beautifully observed study of a Pigeon and her nesting young was executed the same year as Webbe’s celebrated White Owl. This was shown at the Royal Academy in 1856 and was sold at Christies’ London on 13 December 2012, lot 9 (£589, 250). Webbe’s owl was not only rapturously received in the sale room, but praised by Ruskin when it was first exhibited as evidence of a `rising school’ of Pre-Raphaelitism spreading beyond the Brotherhood. Trained in Dusseldorf, and hence familiar with the detail and finish of the Nazarene school, Webbe was a great admirer of Holman Hunt. Like Hunt he travelled to the Holy Land. This picture was executed in the relative seclusion of Niton, on the Isle of Wight.