Signed and inscribed on the verso in pen and brown ink Conte Kray Leverid Groot/ A.S.17.. pencil, pen and ink and watercolour and gum arabic on laid paper, pen and grey ink framing lines

361 x 505 mm. (14 1/8 x 19 7/8 in.)

Frame and mount: 22 14 x 27 1/4 including matt and antique style frame

Condition: the drawing is not laid down, and there are minor creases including one visible in raking light running along the lower right margin through the tail and feet of the crow; minor surface rubbing, there is a minor tear on the verso in the centre of the upper margin. Otherwise the paper and watercolour are in an excellent condition.

The hooded crow (Corvus cornix) (also called hoodiecrow) is a Eurasian bird species in the crow genus. Widely distributed, it is also known locally as Scotch crow, Danish crow, and corbie or grey crow in Ireland. Found across Northern, Eastern and Southeastern Europe, as well as parts of the Middle East, it is an ashy grey bird with black head, throat, wings, tail and thigh feathers, as well as a black bill, eyes and feet. Like other corvids it is an omnivorous and opportunistic forager and feeder.

Aert Schouman is regarded today, as well as in his day, as one of the unrivalled watercolourists of the period. Around the age of 15 he began an 8 year apprenticeship with Adriaan van der Burg in his native Dordrecht. After his masters death Schouman became an in dependent artist, earning his living chiefly as a painter of portraits and wall hangings, although he accepted more modest commissions. Like many of his colleagues Schouman also worked as an art dealer. Beginning in 1735 he received commissions from the province of Zeeland, and in particular from the town of Zeeland, where his brother Cornelis was active as painter. From around 1748 he lived alternatively in Dordrecht and The Hague. It was in The Hague, where the stadtholder had his court, that Schouman came into his own as an artist. Niemeijer regarded Schoumans, rendering of animals and birds, some in oils, but most in watercolour, are probably his most important contribution to eighteenth-century Dutch art. In them he combined an exceptionally radiant palette with a rapid, transparent handling of the brush and an assured mise en page. 1

The present watercolour is comparable to many pictures by the artist of birds, including these three which have been published Condor, the king of the Kites; Pair of ducks at the waterside and Crowned Pigeon.2

These following watercolours of birds are also very comparable to our drawing and were in The Unicorno Collection and sold in 2004, A Crested Oropendula and An Adult and a Juvenile Night Heron.3

Another closely comparable watercolour is of Two Doves on a Branch from the Ploos van Amstel Knoef collection in the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. According to van Dam Schouman made these types of drawings the drawings background; he painted it from his imagination with a brush. The background generally depicted the area from which the bird came. Schouman was able to sell many of his studies because there was a huge market from them among both collectors of drawings and collectors of unusual flora and fauna. As far as the artist himself was concerned, however, they would have essentially remained studies that he could use in larger compositions or his wall coverings. 4

Additionally Laurens Bol has written Schoumans watercolour depictions of birds can be divided into two groups, according to the nature and requirements of the subject. First, there are the portraits, some of a single bird, others of two or three grouped together sitting on the branches of a sketchily drawn, moss-covered tree or trunk. This aptly describes our drawing. 5

Major The Hon. Henry Rogers Broughton was a significant benefactor to the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, and there is a gallery (Gallery 17, which is dedicated to flower paintings) which includes works all from his collection. In the prints and drawings department at the same museum this work by Aert Schouman (PD.127-1973).

Henry was born in America and educated at St. Pauls School, in the USA, before going to Harrow and being commissioned at Sandhurst and Royal Horse Guards in 1920. Five years later he and his brother bought the Barton Stud near Bury St. Edmunds, and the following year Anglesey Abbey.

1.J.W Niemeijer, Eigtheenth-Century Watercolours, from the Rijksmuseum Printroom Amsterdam, 1993, p.124.

2.L.J. Bol, Aart Schouman, Ingenious Painter and Draughtsman, Doornspijk, 1991, Number 64, page 80; Number 65, page 82; Number 67a, page 87.

3.Sothebys Amsterdam, 19 May 2004, lots 205 and 218.

4.Marius van Dam, Miscellanea delineate, Dutch drawings, 1780-1860 from the Ploos van Amstel Knoef collection in the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, pp110-111, cat.no.29.

5.L.J. Bol, op.cit, p. 81.