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ARCHIBALD THORBURN (1860-1935) (LOTS 22-23 and 25-26) Archibald Thorburn was born at Viewfield House, Lasswade, near Edinburgh, the fifth son of Robert Thorburn, a miniaturist who numbered Queen Victoria amongst his patrons. From an early age, the younger Thorburn took a delight in drawing, filling numerous sketchbooks with studies of flora and fauna. Such direct observation from nature was to form the foundation of his art, for although he briefly attended the St. John's Wood School of Art, Thorburn received little formal training. His career as a painter of birds began in 1883 when he completed 144 plates for W.F. Swayland's Familiar Wild Birds, but his reputation was secured through his contribution to Lord Lilford's magisterial survey Coloured Figures of the Birds of the British Islands published between 1885 and 1898. Thorburn's work created such an impact as he was one of the first British wildlife artists to go into the field and take sketches from life. Whilst his contemporaries were sketching birds from examples which had suffered at the hands of taxidermists, Thorburn, inspired by Joseph Wolf's ablilty to capture an 'indescribable feeling of life and movement' when depicting subjects, keenly observed his specimens in their natural habitat. In the words of John Southern, Thorburn was the first to combine scientific accuracy with 'the fresh softness of the living bird'. Although Thorburn moved to London in 1885, he made regular sketching tours of the British Isles, seeking inspiration for his work. In 1889, he first visited the Forest of Gaick in Invernesshire, the setting for almost all his depictions of ptarmigan and red deer, and he became a frequent guest of John Henry Dixon at Inveran on Loch Maree in Rosshire. Following his marriage to Constance Mudie, Thorburn moved to High Leybourne, near Hascombe in west Surrey, in 1902. There he established an undisturbed routine of sketching on his morning walk, and then working these sketches into finished compositions in his studio until the light failed. Although he exhibited at the Royal Academy throughout the 1880s and 1890s, Thorburn had become disillusioned with the institution and showed instead at A. Baird Carter at 70 Jermyn Street, SW1, and with his agents in Blackburn and Newcastle. Although Thorburn occasionally worked in oil he found watercolour the most expressive medium with which to capture his subject's likeness. Thorburn's direct observation of birds' eyes and feet, the softness of their plumage, and the balance which they exhibit both in the air and land, have brought delight to successive generations of collectors.

Archibald Thorburn (1860-1935)

Teal and Widgeon

Details

Archibald Thorburn (1860-1935)
Teal and Widgeon
signed and dated 'Archibald Thorburn. 1912' (lower left)
pencil and watercolour, heightened with bodycolour and with gum arabic
23¼ x 35 in. (59 x 88.9 cm.)

Provenance

Purchased by Charles Edward Hope from A. Baird-Carter, 1912
and by descent in the family to the present owner.

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Lot Essay

Charles Hope of Bank House, Burton-in-Wirral, Cheshire, was a significant collector of Thorburn's work and acquired a large number of the artist's works. A sketch for the present watercolour, also dated 1912 was included in the Christie's, Edinburgh, 31 October 2002, lot 34 and inscribed 'Wildfowl sketch' (on the reverse).

Thorburn enjoyed painting pictures of wildfowl and wigeon and teal were particular favourites of his. The present picture shows Thorburn skilfully painting calm water with the reflections running down across the paper. Teal are resident birds, but vast numbers of the wigeon, as spring approaches, fly northwards to breed in northern Europe and Asia from whence they came.

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