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Archibald Thorburn Lots 60-63 Almost seventy years after his death, Archibald Thorburn's depictions of British birdlife are as popular today as they were with previous sportsmen and birdlovers. Whilst many artists have emulated him, few have captured so realistically the glint in an eye or the sheen on a feather of the birds he studied so intently. His works are so realistic as to become timeless, and they are still the best loved, and most widely reproduced bird pictures in Britain. 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'. Thorburn moved to London in 1885, he made regular sketching tours of the British Isles, seeking inspiration for his work. Following his marriage to Constance Mudie, Thorburn moved to High Leybourne, near Hascombe in west Surrey, in 1902. 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. We are grateful to John Southern for his help in preparing this introduction.

Archibald Thorburn (1860-1935)

The bridle path

细节

Archibald Thorburn (1860-1935)
The bridle path
signed and dated 'Archibald Thorburn 1910.' (lower left)
pencil and watercolour heightened with touches of bodycolour and with gum arabic
22 x 30 in. (56 x 76.5 cm.)

出版

J. Southern, Thorburn's Landscape: The Major Natural History Paintings, London, 1981, p. 64, pl. XXVI.

注意事项

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis

拍品专文

As John Southern mentions in Thorburn's Landscape, London, 1981, p. 64, this present watercolour depicts a favourite spot of Thorburn's, only ten minutes from his home in Surrey.

'Thorburn loved this spot, deep in Hascombe Woods ... He visited it on innumerable occasions, sketching on his regular morning walk and working sketches into finished compositions in the studio (see fig. 1). He knew the gnarled oak tree and the slender sapling growing up under the old one's wing, and he produced several other very fine finished watercolours based on happenings here. In other pictures we see a fox or another pheasant crossing the path where the huntsman appears in this one, and another example has a group of pheasants in rapid flight past the ancient tree.'