Delichon urbicum
This 18th Century watercolour of the Common House Martin (Delichon urbicum) is the work of Jacobus van Huysum, a Dutch painter who spent the latter part of his career in England and contributed to some of the most ambitious natural history projects of his day. The study belongs to the Taylor White Collection, a body of ornithological and botanical watercolours commissioned in the mid 18th Century and now held by McGill University Library.
Description of the House Martin
The House Martin is a bird of open skies and human rooftops. Small, glossy blue-black above and clean white below, with a distinctive white rump that identifies it in flight, it spends most of its waking life on the wing, feeding on insects caught high in the air. Its breeding range is unusually wide, extending across Europe and Turkey into the Middle East and parts of eastern Asia, with the entire population wintering in Africa.
The House Martin In Europe
In Britain, House Martins arrive through March and April and depart again in September and October. Unlike many migrants, they nest in close company with people, building their enclosed mud cups beneath the eaves of houses and returning to the same buildings year after year. That habit has made them one of the most familiar of summer birds, and one of the most easily observed.
Van Huysum’s treatment reflects the priorities of 18th Century natural history illustration: accurate plumage detail, careful attention to the shape of the wing and tail, and a composition that allows the bird to be identified rather than merely admired. Painted before photography and before modern field guides, watercolours of this kind were the primary means by which species were recorded, compared and understood.
1688 - 1740
Jacobus van Huysum (c.1687-1740) was a Dutch-born painter chiefly known for botanical illustration, from a family of flower painters that included his father Justus and his elder brother, the celebrated Jan van Huysum. He left the Netherlands for England in 1721, working under the patronage of the South Sea House merchant Charles Lockyer before later working for Sir Robert Walpole. His botanical work included illustrations for John Martyn's Historia Plantarum Rariorum (1728-1738), and from 1734 he painted watercolours of plants for the Royal Society and, privately, for the naturalist and collector Taylor White. Within White's collection is a small number of bird watercolours signed by van Huysum, including a pair of House Martins, a Shoveler and a pair of Crowned Cranes, an unusual departure for an artist not otherwise known for painting birds.
Credit: Taylor White Collection, Rare Books & Special Collections, McGill University Library.