Jakob Bogdány

Purchased by a private collection in 1936;

Thence by descent;

By whom sold ('The Property of a Lady'), London, Phillips, 5 December 1989, lot 111;

With Richard Green, London;

Anonymous sale, London, Sotheby's, 12 December 2002, lot 44;

With Richard Green, London;

Where acquired.

This painting, as both the style and signature form attest, most probably dates from the later years of Bogdány's career in England. The birds, mainly water fowl, are a ruff (philomachus pugnax), crested mallard (anas platyrhynchos), wigeons (anas penelope), wild and domesticated muscovy ducks (cairina moschata), a snow bunting (plectrophenax nivalis) and a juvenile sparrow hawk (accipiter nisus). This latter bird is an unusual feature in Bogdány's paintings, but many of the others recur with variations in works from this period.

Bogdány settled in London in 1688. His interest in birds most probably developed after 1703, when he had access to the remarkable collection of exotic birds owned by Admiral George Churchill (1653–1710), kept in an aviary in the Little Park at Windsor. Three of his largest works of this type, painted for Churchill, were later bought by Queen Anne.¹

We are grateful to Dr Fred G. Meijer for endorsing the attribution of this work to Jakob Bogdány on the basis of digital images.

¹ O. Millar, The Tudor, Stuart and early Georgian Pictures in the collection of Her Majesty the Queen, London 1963, pp. 164–65, nos 472–76.