?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 20,000 - $ 30,000
AUDUBON, JOHN JAMES (after); KIDD, JOSEPH BARTHOLOMEW (painter). Cliff Swallows. Oil on millboard, labeled on verso: "The only manufactory for genuine Flemish grounds on Panel and Millboard. . . R. Davy, colorman to artists, 83 Newman-Street, London." 19x12 inches panel size. In an antique wood frame with linen fillet. [United Kingdom, circa 1831-33]
In 1831, a 23-year-old Joseph Bartholomew Kidd called on Audubon in London, having first met him in Edinburgh a few years prior. Audubon was greatly impressed by Kidd's "youth, simplicity and cleverness" and desired to put the young man's skills to work. He hoped that they could complete a "Natural History Gallery of Paintings" through which they would sell oil versions of plates from Birds of America.
The project went through a number of iterations, and at times Audubon had quite grandiose ideas for it. The incarnation which came closest to completion is laid out in the following quote from Audubon:
"It was our intention to send them to the exhibition for sale, and to divide the amount between us. [Kidd] painted eight, and then I proposed, if he would paint the one hundred engravings which comprise my first volume of Birds of America, I would pay him one hundred pounds."
Kidd worked intermittently for Audubon from 1831 to 1833 and completed 94 oils on canvas or millboard. Approximately 40 of these paintings are now housed in institutional collections. Of the remainder, a substantial portion descended through the Audubon family, as is the case with the Cliff Swallows painting.
The painting is inscribed on verso: "Mark F. Zinck". Mark was great-great-grandson of John James Audubon; he was the son of Hulda Williams, who was daughter of Lucy Audubon, who, in turn, was daughter of John Woodhouse Audubon and Maria Bachman.
