Lazuli Bunting
c. 1670 - c. 1719
Medium
brush
Dimensions
125; 166
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
height 166 mm x width 125 mm
Art Historical Context
Jan Weenix, a leading Dutch painter of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, created this delicate brush drawing of a Lazuli Bunting during the final decades of the Dutch Golden Age. Weenix is best known for his refined still-life paintings that often featured birds and game, and this small work reflects his lifelong fascination with the precise observation of nature. Measuring just 166 by 125 millimeters, the drawing’s intimate scale invites close viewing. Executed with a brush, it demonstrates the artist’s ability to convey texture and form through economical strokes, a technique that would later inform the detailed plumage and lifelike presence seen in his larger canvases. Created between roughly 1670 and 1719, the sheet stands as a quiet testament to the period’s growing interest in natural history. It offers today’s visitors a rare glimpse into the preparatory or personal studies that supported the celebrated still-life tradition of the Dutch Baroque.