Cyanistes caeruleus
This watercolour depicts the Blue Tit, one of Europe’s most familiar and best-loved garden birds, rendered by Charles Collins (c.1680-1744) for the Taylor White Collection. Collins, an Irish-born still-life painter who moved to England around 1730, was one of the two principal artists Taylor White commissioned to record British birds and mammals, and much of his work for the collection dates from between 1736 and 1743. The species was historically classified as Parus caeruleus, and the collection’s original documentation may reflect this earlier name.
The Blue Tit is instantly recognisable for its vivid plumage: a cobalt-blue cap, white cheeks bordered by a dark eye stripe, and a bright yellow breast. It is non-migratory, remaining year-round within its breeding range across Europe and parts of North Africa, and is a familiar sight in gardens, parks and woodland edges alike.
Alongside birds such as the Robin and Blackbird, the Blue Tit has long held a particular place in British natural history and popular affection, prized for its liveliness and striking colouring. Its inclusion in the Taylor White Collection reflects the wider eighteenth-century fascination with recording Britain’s native wildlife in precise, naturalistic detail, at a time when natural history illustration was becoming an increasingly rigorous discipline in its own right.
c.1680 - 1744
Charles Collins (c.1680-1744) was a painter of birds, mammals and still life, born in Dublin and trained in Ireland before establishing himself in London. He built his early reputation on still-life subjects, including a series of fruit studies for Robert Furber's Twelve Months of Fruit (1732), before turning increasingly to natural history illustration. From 1736, Collins worked alongside Peter Paillou to produce watercolours of British birds and mammals for the naturalist and collector Taylor White, contributing over 200 signed works to White's collection. His animal studies are noted for their lifelike composition, typically set against a grassy mound or tree stump rather than a plain background, and for the accuracy with which plumage and colouring were recorded from live or preserved specimens. Collins died in London in 1744, described at the time as Bird Painter to the Royal Society.
Credit: Taylor White Collection, Rare Books & Special Collections, McGill University Library.