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"A bluebird on twig of spring flowers,"
watercolor, signed/1914,
6.625" x 4.5" sight, 14" x
9.5" mat.
Condition: Very good. The watercolor has been re-matted
and there is a faint horizontal line about
an inch from the top of the mat, noticeable
only upon close examination.
Biography: Born Edinburgh, the son of a miniaturist
who worked for Queen Victoria, he was taught
to paint by his father and he first exhibited
at the RSA aged 10. During the 1880s he produced
a number of illustrations for books including
268 of the 421 plates in Lord Lilford of
Northampton's Coloured Figures of the Birds of the British
Islands (1888). He continued to illustrate books
and his British Birds, which first appeared in 1915-16, met with
huge popularity. Thorburn settled in London
in 1885, moving in 1902 to a country house
near Godalming. He returned each year to
Scotland to draw, working these drawings
up in his studio into full-scale watercolours.
He rarely worked in oil, preferring the delicacy
of watercolour, but he made extensive use
of Chinese white and the often have the appearance
of oils. Thorburn was good at composing animal
and bird pictures, and his background landscapes
were accurately and freely drawn. He often
sketched in the Forest of Gaick in Inverness-shire
and was able to capture the different seasons.
Some of his watercolours of ptarmigan in
winter plumage seen against a snow landscape
are masterpieces of tonal painting. Although
he was best known for his birds, he also
painted deer and other Highland animals.
art is different in approach and aim from
that of CRAWHALL and EDWIN ALEXANDER, but
he was certainly the finest painter of his
genre-- From The Dictionary of Scottish Painters.
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