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Lot Essay
This crane is found in marshes, flooded fields and swamps of southern Asia, particularly northern India, and in coastal northern Australia.
A collection of natural history drawings, including numerous watercolours of birds, was commissioned by the French patron Claude Martin after he settled in Lucknow in 1755. More than a hundred drawings of birds were found during the inventory of his house after his death in 1800. These delicate studies were probably drawn from life, since the Nawab of Lucknow's aviary in the garden of the Macchi Bhawan held the largest collection of birds in Oudh. Martin was one of the earliest Europeans to collect drawings of birds in what became British India. He was followed by the Marquis Wellesley who amassed a collection of natural history drawings at Barrackpore, near Calcutta, and of course Lady Impey, whose 197 studies of birds were commissioned between 1774 and 1782 in Patna (see Niall Hobhouse, The Lucknow Menagerie, Natural History Drawings from the Collection of Claude Martin (1735-1800), London, 2001).
Another watercolour of an Indian Sarus Crane dated circa 1800 was sold at Christie's, King Street, 22 May 2008, lot 10.
A collection of natural history drawings, including numerous watercolours of birds, was commissioned by the French patron Claude Martin after he settled in Lucknow in 1755. More than a hundred drawings of birds were found during the inventory of his house after his death in 1800. These delicate studies were probably drawn from life, since the Nawab of Lucknow's aviary in the garden of the Macchi Bhawan held the largest collection of birds in Oudh. Martin was one of the earliest Europeans to collect drawings of birds in what became British India. He was followed by the Marquis Wellesley who amassed a collection of natural history drawings at Barrackpore, near Calcutta, and of course Lady Impey, whose 197 studies of birds were commissioned between 1774 and 1782 in Patna (see Niall Hobhouse, The Lucknow Menagerie, Natural History Drawings from the Collection of Claude Martin (1735-1800), London, 2001).
Another watercolour of an Indian Sarus Crane dated circa 1800 was sold at Christie's, King Street, 22 May 2008, lot 10.