Decoy: Yellowlegs

Date1895-1900 (probably)

Attributed to George Boyd (1873 - 1941)

MediumPaint on wood with tack eye

DimensionsOverall (Without stand or dowel and with bird in naturalistic position): 5 1/2 x 10 5/8 x 2 3/4in. (14 x 27 x 7cm)

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1958.702.14

DescriptionA carved and painted wooden shorebird with a small hole in the bottom for a stick, dowel, or stand. The bird poses alertly, its head raised at a near 90-degree angle to its body. The upper body is a mottled, dark, brownish gray, the underbody cream colored and speckled with brownish gray daubs that are more concentrated and closer together on the head and the back of the neck. The black bill is medium long, more than twice the depth of the bird's head. The eyes are tacks. The wings are represented by paint, not carved, except at the tail, which is forked.
The head was broken off and reglued prior to acquisition, the present join being more visible on the bird's proper right side than its left.
Label TextGeorge Boyd was born and raised in Seabrook, New Hampshire, a marshy area frequented by the market gunners who helped supply game birds for Bostonians' dinner tables. Boyd hunted waterfowl throughout his life, but the activity became more of a sideline after he married in his early twenties and took a job in a shoe factory. He carried out much of his cobbling finish work at home, laboring in a shop built behind his house, where he also made decoys.

Boyd carved and painted several species of waterfowl but only two kinds of shorebirds have been identified as his: Plovers and Yellowlegs. He worked without patterns, so no two birds are precisely the same. This Yellowlegs illustrates the bold, squared-off head and short, fine brushstrokes that characterize his style. The fringe-like brushstrokes just beneath the wings are particularly associated with Boyd's delicate touch.

ProvenanceOwnership prior to CWF's source, The Old Print Shop of New York, NY, is undocumented.