Rose-Breasted Grosbeak
Medium
Painting
Classification
Painting
Department
Smithsonian Collection
Museum
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Credit
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the U. S. National Museum
Accession Number
1953.3.4
Tags
grosbeakplainpine tree
About this artwork
Around 1830, John James Audubon commissioned the Scottish artist Joseph Bartholomew Kidd to copy many of his paintings of birds. Audubon hoped to use these paintings in a natural history gallery that would tour England. The project was never completed, however, in part because Kidd took too long to finish the work. In this painting, Kidd directly copied the four birds on a branch from the original illustration, then added a landscape to the background to create an “embellished” painting for Audu...