Black-Footed Ferret, 1840/1846

Not on View

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 55.5 x 68.5 cm (21 7/8 x 26 15/16 in.)

framed: 62.2 x 75.3 x 1.9 cm (24 1/2 x 29 5/8 x 3/4 in.)

Credit Line

Gift of E.J.L. Hallstrom

Accession Number

1951.9.1

Artists / Makers

John Woodhouse Audubon (painter) American, 1812 - 1862

Image Use

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Inscription

on reverse, written twice at right angles, now obscured by lining fabric (photo in NGA curatorial file): W.B. 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 twice in ink on the back of the painting is: "W.B. 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 one of them, 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.

2000: John James Audubon in the West: The Last Expedition, Mammals of North America, Buffalo Bill Hist. Ctr., Cody; Acad. of Nat. Sci., Phil. [not shown]; Houston Mus. of Nat. Sci.; Autry Mus. of Western Heritage, Los Angeles, 2000-2001, unnumb. cat., repro.

2014: Extended loan for use by Secretary Ernest Moniz, U.S. Department of Energy, Washington, D.C., 2014-2016.

Technical Summary

The original support is a plain-weave fabric. The painting has been lined. The paint was generally applied thinly and transparently. In the foreground the warm, off-white ground layer shows through the brushstrokes, creating a luminosity in some of the browns. The ferret was accomplished with fine brush strokes of thinly applied paint to suggest the texture of fur. The painting is in a very poor condition, with numerous small losses of paint and ground. The largest loss, the size of a quarter, is in the center of the sky above the ferret's back. In 1989, the painting was relined and a new varnish coating was applied over remnants of an old, discolored varnish layer. Inpainting in the sky has whitened.

Bibliography

1951: Ford, Alice, ed. Audubon's Animals. New York, 1951: 216.

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: 21, 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: 19-21, color repro.