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John Woodhouse Audubon

Long-Tailed Red Fox, 1848/1854

Not on View

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 56.2 x 69.3 cm (22 1/8 x 27 5/16 in.)

framed: 62.6 x 75.7 x 4.1 cm (24 5/8 x 29 13/16 x 1 5/8 in.)

Credit Line

Gift of E.J.L. Hallstrom

Accession Number

1951.9.9

Artists / Makers

John Woodhouse Audubon (painter) American, 1812 - 1862

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
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Inscription

lower right: JW Audubon; on reverse of lining [fabric], in another hand: B.P. Audubon

Provenance

The artist [1812-1862]; probably by inheritance to his second wife, Caroline Hall Audubon [1811-1899], Salem, New York; by inheritance to their son, William Bakewell Audubon [1847-1932], Australia; by inheritance to his son, Leonard Benjamin Audubon [1888-1951], Sydney, Australia;[1] sold 1950 to E.J.L. Hallstrom [1886-1970], Sydney, Australia; gift 1951 to NGA.

[1] Handwritten in ink on the back of the painting is: "B.P. Audubon." John James Audubon had four children, one of whom was John Woodhouse Audubon [1812-1862]. The younger Audubon married twice; he had two children with his first wife, Maria Bachman [1816-1840], and seven with his second wife, Caroline Hall [1811-1899]. Of the seven, five lived to adulthood, and the youngest was Benjamin P. Audubon [1855-1886], whose name is written on the back of the painting. His older brother, William Bakewell Audubon [1847-1932], left the United States for Australia in either 1880 or 1882. He began a new life raising sheep near Yass, a small town about 250 miles west of Sydney. He married Lucy Ann Grovenor in 1885, and they had two children, Leonard Benjamin and Ella Caroline. According to a letter of 9 July 1952 from Ella Caroline Audubon to John Walker (in NGA curatorial files), Audubon paintings were sent to Australia in 1899 or 1900, which would correspond with the death of Caroline Hall Audubon on 1 February 1899. Miss Audubon's letter states that her father arrived in Australia 8 April 1880. However, Walter Audubon gives 21 January 1882 as the date that William Bakewell Audubon sailed for Australia, and he writes also that it was William who "brought with him many paintings by his grandfather, John James Audubon" (see Walter Audubon, Last of the Audubon Line: The Descendants of John Woodhouse Audubon, Franklin, North Carolina, 2002: 72-79).

Associated Names

Audubon, Caroline Hall
Audubon, John Woodhouse
Audubon, Leonard Benjamin
Audubon, William Bakewell
Hallstrom, E.J.L.

Exhibition History

1951: Audubon Paintings and Prints from the Collection of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1951.

1985: Extended loan for use by Ambassador Thomas Michael Tulliver Niles, U.S. Embassy residence, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, 1985-1989.

1992: Extended loan for use by John C. Kornblum, U.S. Representative to the Conference and Security Commission of Europe, Vienna, Austria, 1992-1994.

1994: Extended loan for use by Samuel Brown, U.S. Representative to the Conference and Security Commission of Europe, Vienna, Austria, 1994-1998.

Technical Summary

The support is a plain-weave fabric that has been lined. On the reverse of the lining canvas, a colormen's stencil reads: "PREPARED/BY/ED WD DECHAUX/NEW YORK" and "22 X 27." There is a warm, off-white ground layer of moderate thickness under the thinly and transparently applied paint. The ground layer shows through the foreground, creating a luminosity in some of the browns. Fine brushstrokes of thinly applied paint are used to suggest the texture of the fox's fur. The sky is more thickly painted, wet-into-wet. White highlights in impasted paint outline most of the design areas. The condition of the painting is reasonably good, with the exception of the edges. There is a tear in the back of the fox and a dime-size loss in the center of the sky. Blistering and crizzled paint and long, irregular losses along the bottom edge are the result of water damage. The varnish is unevenly glossy and has become highly discolored.

Bibliography

1951: Ford, Alice, ed. Audubon's Animals. New York, 1951: 214.

1970: American Paintings and Sculpture: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1970: 12, repro.

1980: American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1980: 22, repro.

1992: American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 22, repro.

1996: Kelly, Franklin, with Nicolai Cikovsky, Jr., Deborah Chotner, and John Davis. American Paintings of the Nineteenth Century, Part I. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1996: 21, color repro. 22.