Watercolor: Red-winged blackbird
Date1732-1733
Artist/Maker
George Edwards
(1694 - 1773)
OriginEngland
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. . .”
1890-1900 (probably)
1880-1900 (probably)
1768-1790
1850-1870 (probably)
ca. 1880
1860-1880 (probably)
Ca. 1710-1720
Ca. 1710-1720