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Description: | Inscr. verso: "Supplement to 'The Queen'" CRE WHISTLER, Beatrix; (English; 1857-1896) There are 30 studies of birds in the Hunterian collection, ranging from pencil sketches to finished oil paintings. Beatrix Whistler kept pet birds and designed bird cages for them (see GLAHA 46575-46579). In 1895, the collector Charles L. Freer sent Beatrix Whistler a songbird from India, which she loved. It joined a white parrot and mocking bird at the Whistlers' home in Paris, 110 rue du Bac. They and Beatrix are depicted in the drawing 'Beatrice Whistler looking at her birds' (M1398, AHA 46196).
Beatrix Whistler would work up drawings with sketchy strokes into finished designs, with expressive, flowing lines, for furniture panels or tiles. During the early 1880s, Beatrix's first husband E. W. Godwin (1833-1886), architect and designer, sold many designs illustrating the seasons and birds to tile manufacturers Minton, Hollins & Co., Belham & Co. and Wilcock & Co. It is likely that some of these designs were by Beatrix Whistler. Tile-sized drawings in the Hunterian with six-inch square borders were probably designs that were not sold for manufacture.
The pose of this bird is very like a more highly-finished drawing, GLAHA 46689. The upside down drawing in blue of a woman's profile may be one of Beatrix Whistler's caricature portraits. On the back is a fragment of a wood engraving from the periodical 'The Queen'. It reproduces a painting of a female figure reaching up for some blossom on a tree.
Birnie Philip Gift, 1935 - not lendable | License: | http://www.hmag.gla.ac.uk/spirit/rights/ | Publisher: | Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, University of Glasgow | Rights holder: | Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, University of Glasgow | Subjects: | BIRD : PORTRAIT : | Source: | Hunterian Museum | Creator: | Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, University of Glasgow | Identifier: | http://www.huntsearch.gla.ac.uk/cgi-bin/... | Language: | en-GB | Go to resource |
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