Painting depicting farm birds with a macaw and a tom-tit in a tree. Oil painting by Jacob Bogdani, first quarter of 18th century.

An oil painting of domesticated waterfowl and other farm birds, presided over by a large parrot and smaller colourful wild birds perched in a tree.

Bequeathed by Claude D. Rotch

Historical significance: Born in Eperjes, Hungary, probably in 1660, Jacob Bogdani was the son of a landed gentleman. He travelled west, perhaps via Vienna, was documented in Amsterdam between 1684 and 1686 and was residing in London by June 1688. Producing predominately flower pieces, Bogdani was working in competition with the Verelst family and Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer (1636-1699) in the 1690s. At the beginning of the Eighteenth Century he began producing bird paintings. Through his marriage to Elizabeth Hemmings, Bogdani became Lord of the Manor of Hitchin and he was naturalised a British citizen on the 11 April 1700. Bogdani’s prolific and prosperous career enabled him to purchase estates at Finchley, Spalding and Hitchin.

In this painting Bogdani has grouped together domestic British birds including a Tufted Duck, a Mallard and a Great Tit with the more exotic species of A Blue-and yellow Macaw, a Common Cardinal and a Red-faced Lovebird. The subject allows him to demonstrate his ability at painting a variety of textures, particularly the plumage of the birds against the bark of the tree that cuts across the top right corner of the canvas. Shown in the foreground right corner with his back to us, the Domestic Duck directs our view into the composition of the birds arranged in front of a landscape that leads back to a distant mountain. Behind the Duck is a Shelduck and to the left a Tufted duck, accompanied by two chicks, bathes in the water. Behind this group are more exotic birds while including a Jandaya Conure and a Great Tit, which fly or perch in the overhanging branches. There is a great variety in the way that Bogdani has represented the movement of each of these birds. This can be seen particularly in the characteristic way that the Domestic Duck opens its beak and the Great Tit bends around the branch that it is perched onThis variety is continued in the wealth of colours used to depict the different plumage of each bird, making it a pleasing composition to the eye.

Many of the birds in this painting appear in different groupings in Bogdani’s works. For example the Blue-and yellow Macaw is featured in a ‘Group of three Macaws’ in museum number 474 of the Royal Collection (See Pigler, pl.XXXVIII; Green, cat.29); It also appears in a group of which there are four versions, two of them being in the collection of the Hungarian National Gallery (See Green, cat.25 and 20). The Mallard appears in a number of works by Bogdani (See An Egyptian goose and ducks by a cottage, Private Collection, reproduced in Green, cat.28). The Mallard, Shelduck and Tufted Duck appear in a number of compositions. They are all in museum number 3924 of the Hungarian National Gallery (See: Pigler, pl.XXXIX). Similarly the Great Tit can be seen in the same act of perching on a branch in Fruit by a tree with a spaniel barking at birds (Private collection, reproduced in Green, cat.11).

The large number of surviving works by Bogdani, combined with his recycling of the motifs of birds in many of his paintings suggests that the artist was operating a studio to supply to the high demand for his paintings. Bogdani’s son in law, the painter Tobias Stranover (1684-1724), arrived in England in 1703. This is about the time when Bogdani was beginning to paint his bird subjects. The borrowings found in Stranover’s work from his father-in-law’s oevre suggest that they may have collaborated on Bogdani’s paintings. Similarly the English Art Historian, Antiquarian and man of letters, Horace Walpole (1717-1797) remarked that Bogdani’s son, William (died 1772) “formerly painted in his father’s manner” (See: Green, p.3). This implies that the artist was running a workshop with the aid of those close to him.

It is hard to date Bogdani’s work as there appears to be very little stylistic change throughout his career. He is documented painting flowers and still life on his arrival in England and up until the end of the seventeenth century. Following this there is little documentation of the type of works that Bogdani was painting. On the evidence of the large collection of bird paintings by the artist that Admiral Churchill (1654-1710) had amassed by the time of his death in 1710, it can be suggested that Bogdani began to paint his bird paintings in circa 1700.

While his flower paintings had brought him in competition with other artists specialising in the subject matter in Britain, including Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer and the Verelst family there were few artists painting bird pictures at this time. Barlow, who was renowned for his representations of animals, died in 1703, leaving artists Peter Casteels and Luke Craddock with whom Bogdani had to compete. As with his earlier flower pieces, Bogdani’s bird paintings, with their variety of species and colours, were becoming an increasingly popular genre in Britain in the early eighteenth century.

Six years after his arrival in Britain Bogdani is documented working for King William III (1650-1702). Royal patronage brought him in contact with the British gentry, many of whom commissioned works from the artist. These works fell from popularity after Bogdani’s death. However the variety in Bogdani’s bird paintings with their wealth of colours and textures were extremely popular during his lifetime. Such paintings, including P.43-1962, were suited to the grand interiors of the houses of the British Gentry that commissioned them from Bogdani.

References:

Green, Richard. Jacob Bogdani: c.1660-1724, London, 1989.

This painting is a fine example of the Hungarian born artist, Jacob Bogdani, who had a successfull career in London at the head of a prolific studio. He mainly produced still-life and flower pieces reminiscent of the seventeeth century Dutch art. In this composition, Bogdani has gathered a variety of domestic and exotic animals, which allows the artist to show his ability in depicting different types of textures in a feast of colours.

P.43-1962