Common Waxbill, 1782 and Lyrebird watercolours / by Sarah Stone

PXD 1354

fonds

ca. 1782-1806

Graphic Materials, Drawings

1043451

2 drawings - watercolour, Indian ink - 50.1 x 32.0 cm, 43.5 x 30.3 cm

Sarah Stone is one of the most highly regarded natural history artists from the second half of the 18th century. She exhibited with the Royal Academy and the Royal Society of Artists. She made drawings from a set of Australian specimens sent to England from NSW by Surgeon John White. The drawings were engraved and published in John White's 'Journal of a Voyage to New South Wales' (London, 1790). Stone was employed by Sir Ashton Lever as his principle artist to record his vast natural history collections and it is for this association that she is best known. Much of her work was produced in or for the Holophusicon, the private museum of the Manchester amateur collector. His collection included specimens from Cook's second and third voyages. In 1786 the museum was sold and bought by law stationer James Parkinson, who opened it in Blackfriars Road as 'The Leverian Museum'. It was finally sold at auction and dispersed in 1806.

Reference:
Library File
Sotheby's Australia Important Australian Art, 14 May 2013. Second East Auction Holdings: Melbourne; 2013.

The Common Waxbill (Estrilda astrild), also known as the St Helena Waxbill and Lyrebird (Menura superba) are delicately illustrated perched on tree branches, in a typical natural history scientific style. Stone is likely to have drawn these watercolours from specimens in Sir Ashton Lever's collection. This is supported by the listing of a Waxbill and two Lyrebirds in the Leverian Museum catalogue of sale in 1806.

The African native Waxbill is an introduced species to Pacific regions, where the original specimen that informed this illustration may have been sourced. Stones or eggs rest on the ground underneath the Waxbill's perch. A small fence beam in the background of the image is parallel to the bird's wing and serves to highlight it's brown feathers, in contrast to it's striking red beak and eye feathers.

Stone's Lyrebird is a very early depiction of this ground dwelling native bird around this time period of European exploration and occupation of Australia. The Lyrebird's tail is incomplete. Two long thin median retrices are depicted, whilst the parti-coloured lyrate feathers and the 12 filamentaries are missing. The two slender feathers drawn are raised up in a typical display, suggesting the taxidermed specimens had been informed by firsthand knowledge of the bird's behaviour. The Lyrebird bears some resemblance to a John Lewin Lyrebird watercolour in 1810.

Out of copyright: Creator died before 1955
Please acknowledge:: Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales

Waxbill signed and dated 'Sarah Stone 1782' lower left of image. Lyrebird unsigned and undated.

The Waxbill drawing is dated by the artist. While both drawings are on the same unwatermarked paper stock, the Lyrebird is likely to have been completed years later. This is supported by the dates and locations of Captain Cook's explorations in Australia, and the corresponding dates of the Lyrebirds as additions to Sir Ashton Lever's collections - Head of Pictures, May 2013

Foxing on Waxbill paper stock, May 2013