House Martin Fine Art Print
A high quality fine art print on Hahnemühle German Etching art paper of a pair of House Martins swooping through the sky, painted by wildlife painter Jacobus van Huysum (1688-1740).
Superb House Martin Fine Art Print on Museum-Quality Paper
We've meticulously reproduced House Martin Fine Art Print on museum-quality fine art paper, matched to size. The 6in x 8in print is produced on Enhanced Matte Art Paper [EMA], a heavy-duty fine art paper with a smooth, non-reflective finish. The 12in x 16in and 18in x 24in prints are produced on 310gsm Hahnemühle German Etching paper [HGE], an acid and lignin-free archival paper with a fine tooth, offering our highest level of detail and longevity.
Both papers are fade-resistant and colourfast, using pigment inks designed to preserve the clarity and depth of the original artwork for decades. Every print is produced to order from a high-resolution master file, ensuring sharp detail and accurate colour reproduction.
* Please note that images of House Martin Fine Art Print on our website are lower resolution copies of the originals, for illustrative purposes only. The actual print uses high-resolution source imagery to ensure a crisp, clear, and visually stunning final result.
The Taylor White Collection's 18th Century Watercolour Painting of the House Martin
Our House Martin comes from the original collection of Taylor White F.R.S. (1701-1772). In the mid-18th Century, White commissioned the celebrated wildlife painter Jacobus van Huysum (1688 - 1740) to paint a number of specimens for his collection. The watercolour of the House Martin was among the works van Huysum produced for White.
The original House Martin watercolour is finely painted, with remarkable detail, allowing the plumage and features of the House Martin to be seen in stunning clarity. This depth of colour and detail has been captured brilliantly through the digitisation process and is replicated here for your home or office decor, or as a thoughtful gift.
Taylor White, a barrister by profession and later Puisne Judge for Chester, was a keen naturalist and Fellow of the Royal Society, elected in 1725. Over nearly forty years from the 1730s until his death in 1772, he commissioned 938 watercolours of birds, mammals, fish and reptiles, including the House Martin, now held at McGill University and painted almost entirely by two artists, Charles Collins and Peter Paillou. White was a founding governor of The Foundling Hospital in London and served as its treasurer for the last twenty-five years of his life. His well-connected social and scientific circle gave his artists exceptional access to specimens: his second wife, Frances Armstrong, was the daughter of General John Armstrong, Governor of the Tower of London and Chief Royal Engineer, and White's artists painted the lions, wolves and other animals of the Royal Menagerie there. He also borrowed specimens from the British Museum, and received rare and exotic birds from friends, including the naturalist Joseph Banks, who sailed to Newfoundland in 1766, and William Harrison, who brought back specimens from voyages testing his father's marine chronometer.
The Common House Martin
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.
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