Peregrine Falcons (Duck Hawks) (c. 1827): Art, History and Details

Peregrine Falcons (Duck Hawks) (c. 1827) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is John James Audubon (American, born Haiti, 1785–1851).

The work and its context

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

A vigorous portrayal of two peregrine falcons with their fresh duck prey, John James Audubon's painting relates to his groundbreaking Birds of America publication that sought to depict every species of native North American bird posed in action with elements of their habitats. Based on his artistic and scientific successes, Audubon became the premier naturalist in the United States. After his death, he continued to be associated with bird and nature conservation, and several organizations devoted to such causes were named in his honor. However, in recent years, as Audubon's slaveholding and looting of Indigenous graves has become more widely acknowledged, an increasing number of these groups are changing their names.

Object facts

• Title: Peregrine Falcons (Duck Hawks)
• Date: c. 1827
• Creator attribution: John James Audubon (American, born Haiti, 1785–1851)
• Culture: United States
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on canvas
• Dimensions: Framed: 74.9 x 101 x 10.2 cm (29 1/2 x 39 3/4 x 4 in.); Unframed: 64.5 x 91.5 cm (25 3/8 x 36 in.)
• Collection: American - Painting
• Department: American Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1964.351

A detail from the museum

Clocked at speeds more than 240 mph, peregrine falcons are the world's fastest animals.

Collection credit

Gift of the American Foundation for the Maud E. and Warren H. Corning Botanical Collection

Further reading listed by the museum

• Invoice from Kennedy Galleries, Oct. 20, 1964, Director Files, Sherman Lee, Box 36, File 10: Kennedy Galleries, Ingalls Library, the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
• Henry Sayles Francis, letter to Sherman Lee, Oct. 2, 1964, in CMA curatorial file.
• Martha G. Thomas, letter to Charles E. Winters, Sept. 29, 1992, in CMA curatorial file.

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.