Not currently on display at the V&A

Spoonbill (Platalea Leucorodia)

Watercolour
ca. 1780 (painted)
Artist/Maker
Unknown
Place of origin
Lucknow (made)

Colonel Claude Martin was a Frenchman living in Lucknow in the late 18th century. He arrived in the city in 1775 and was appointed Superintendent of the arsenal of the Nawab of Lucknow. During his residence in the city he collected on a grand scale, and across a wide range of European and Indian objects and paintings. This depiction of a Spoonbill (Platalea leucorodia) by an unknown Lucknow artist belonged to his large set of natural history paintings of the kind bought or commissioned by other European collectors at the same time.


Object details

Categories
Indian Company Paintings
Paintings
Animals and Wildlife
Object type
Watercolour
TitleSpoonbill (Platalea Leucorodia) (generic title)
Materials and techniques
Watercolour on paper
Watercolour
Paper
Painted
Brief description
Painting; watercolour, Spoonbill (Platalea Leucorodia), Lucknow, ca. 1780
Physical description
A painting of a white spoonbill (Platalea leucorodia) on the bank of a stream, the bird itself almost comprising the whole image. The treatment of the landscape with small rounded bushes and clumps of grass is typical of Lucknow painting in the late eighteenth century.
Dimensions
  • Height: 63cm
  • Width: 47.8cm
Style
Company
Marks and inscriptions
  • 'Duriya' (Inscribed on the front in Urdu)
  • '632' (numbered)
  • 'Platalea Leucorodia' (written at the top in pencil)
Credit line
Given by Mr Arthur Jeffries
Object history
Part of a set of bird paintings made for Colonel Claude Martin (1735-1810) at Lucknow.
Subjects depicted
Spoonbill
River
Shadow
Summary
Colonel Claude Martin was a Frenchman living in Lucknow in the late 18th century. He arrived in the city in 1775 and was appointed Superintendent of the arsenal of the Nawab of Lucknow. During his residence in the city he collected on a grand scale, and across a wide range of European and Indian objects and paintings. This depiction of a Spoonbill (Platalea leucorodia) by an unknown Lucknow artist belonged to his large set of natural history paintings of the kind bought or commissioned by other European collectors at the same time.
Bibliographic references
  • M.Archer, Company Paintings (V&A, 1992), cat.no.90. Rosie Llewellyn-Jones, ed., Lucknow: Then and Now, Mumbai: Marg Publications, 2003, p. 112, fig. 8.
  • Archer, Mildred. Company Paintings Indian Paintings of the British period Victoria and Albert Museum Indian Series London: Victoria and Albert Museum, Maplin Publishing, 1992 122 p. ISBN 0944142303
  • Barnard, Nick: Arts of Asia, vol. 45, no. 5, September - October 2015, "The Parasol Foundation Trust Programme: digitising and cataloguing the V&A's South Asian collection.", p. 102. no. 10.
  • India's fabled city : the art of courtly Lucknow / Stephen Markel with Tushara Bindu Gude ; and contributions by Muzaffar Alam ... [et al.]. Munich ;London: Prestel, Johann Gottlieb, c2010 Number: 9783791350752 (hbk.), 3791350757 (hbk.)
Collection
South & South East Asia Collection
Accession number
IS.7-1955

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Record createdDecember 15, 1999
Record URL
https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O16878/spoonbill-platalea-leucorodia-watercolour-unknown/
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