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Heade was fascinated with tropical flora and fauna—studying and painting hummingbirds in Brazil between 1863 and 1865 and making subsequent trips to Nicaragua in 1866 and Colombia, Panama, and Jamaica in 1870. It was not until 1870 Heade considered also focusing on the flowers that he witnessed on these travels. The present work is one of the first instances where the artist painted the two elements of orchids and hummingbirds together—a compositional pairing today considered both the highpoint of Heade’s artistic achievements and an icon of American Art history. Heade’s early attraction to the mystical hummingbird had astounding ramifications for his
artistic career, and he diligently studied the various species to perfectly capture their miniature magnificence. In the present composition, the artist painstakingly represents the unique coloring and features of a pair of birds native to Brazil: a horned sungem (Heliactin cornuta), above, and a black-eared fairy (Heliothryx aurita), below. However, unlike his more scientifically oriented predecessors Audubon and Gould, Heade combined a Darwinian attention to accurately cataloguing the natural world with a Victorian emphasis on evoking the latent, transcendent power of nature.
ProvenanceVictor Spark, New York.
William Poplack, Detroit, Michigan, by 1975.
Godel & Co. Fine Art, New York.
Acquired by Morton and Norma Lee Funger from the above, 1990.
Artist
Martin Johnson Heade
(American, 1819 - 1904)
Cattleya Orchid with Two Brazilian Hummingbirds
Date1871
MediumOil on panel
DimensionsSight: 13 1/2 × 17 1/2 in. (34.3 × 44.5 cm)
Object numberN0007.2024(01)
Credit LineCollection of the Fenimore Art Museum. Gift of the Eugene V. and Clare E. Thaw Charitable Trust
Label TextIn 1863, Martin Johnson Heade traveled to South America, following in the footsteps of fellow painter Frederic Edwin Church, and inspired by the successful publications of artist-ornithologists John James Audubon and John Gould. At the time, an article in the Boston Transcript declared, “It is his intention in Brazil to depict the richest and most brilliant of the hummingbird family—about which he is so great an enthusiast…He is only fulfilling the dream of his boyhood in doing so.”Heade was fascinated with tropical flora and fauna—studying and painting hummingbirds in Brazil between 1863 and 1865 and making subsequent trips to Nicaragua in 1866 and Colombia, Panama, and Jamaica in 1870. It was not until 1870 Heade considered also focusing on the flowers that he witnessed on these travels. The present work is one of the first instances where the artist painted the two elements of orchids and hummingbirds together—a compositional pairing today considered both the highpoint of Heade’s artistic achievements and an icon of American Art history. Heade’s early attraction to the mystical hummingbird had astounding ramifications for his
artistic career, and he diligently studied the various species to perfectly capture their miniature magnificence. In the present composition, the artist painstakingly represents the unique coloring and features of a pair of birds native to Brazil: a horned sungem (Heliactin cornuta), above, and a black-eared fairy (Heliothryx aurita), below. However, unlike his more scientifically oriented predecessors Audubon and Gould, Heade combined a Darwinian attention to accurately cataloguing the natural world with a Victorian emphasis on evoking the latent, transcendent power of nature.
ProvenanceVictor Spark, New York.
William Poplack, Detroit, Michigan, by 1975.
Godel & Co. Fine Art, New York.
Acquired by Morton and Norma Lee Funger from the above, 1990.
On View
On view
