Pintail and Teal at the water's edge

This watercolour was painted for Thorburn's publication Gamebirds and Wildfowl of Great Britian and Ireland. In this book Thorburn achieves his ambition as outlined in his introduction which states: 'My aim in this work has been to represent these birds grouped in their natural surroundings rather than to make scientific plates of the species.' (J. Southern, Thorburn's Landscape: The Major Natural History Paintings , London, 1981, p. 86).