Watercolor: Red-winged blackbird

Date1732-1733

Artist/Maker George Edwards (1694 - 1773)

MediumWatercolor pigments on laid paper.

DimensionsUnframed: 9" H x 7" W

Credit LineGift of Mr. Sumpter T. Priddy, III

Object number1998-148

DescriptionWatercolor of a red-winged blackbird.
Label TextThis red-winged blackbird was one of forty-eight watercolors drawn by the British naturalist, George Edwards for John Drayton of Charleston, South Carolina. Originally housed in a portfolio bearing Drayton’s name and the date 1733, these drawings underscore the intense interest that Europeans had for American flora and fauna, particularly those species and specimens found in the warmer southern climates. The similarity between Edwards’s drawing of the red-winged blackbird and Mark Catesby’s print of the same, leaves little doubt that the two men were familiar with each other’s work. Catesby noted in the text to his two-volume publication that red-winged blackbirds “make their Nests in Carolina and Virginia not on trees, but always over the water, amongst reeds or sedge; the tops of which they interweave very artfully. . .”

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