Hoopoe on a Citrus Tree Branch (c. 1800): Art, History and Details

Hoopoe on a Citrus Tree Branch (c. 1800) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Indian artists of the late 1700s and early 1800s painted images of native birds, plants, and animals for British collectors who mainly lived in the fortified enclave of Calcutta (now Kolkata), which then functioned as the center of British power in India. During this period, known as the Age of Enlightenment, natural history subjects were a fashion in art throughout the colonial British world, in response to the pervasive interest in scientific discovery. This small crested bird is named after the sound of its call, “hoopoe,” an onomatopoeia. The dense, regular, and controlled brushwork that lends realistic texture to the plumage and claws reveals the artist’s training in Indian court traditions.

Object facts

• Title: Hoopoe on a Citrus Tree Branch
• Date: c. 1800
• Culture: India, Company school, Calcutta, early 19th Century
• Type: Painting
• Technique: color on paper
• Dimensions: Overall: 42.5 x 27.8 cm (16 3/4 x 10 15/16 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1990.67

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.