American Buzzard or White Breasted Hawk... Falco Leverianus
John James Audubon, American (born Haiti), 1785 - 1851
about 1810-1820
Pastel, graphite, chalk and white opaque watercolor on medium weight wove [J. Whatman] paper
Sheet: 20 7/8 × 16 15/16 in. (53 × 43.1 cm)
Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth: Purchased through the Katharine T. and Merrill G. Beede 1929 Fund and the Mrs. Harvey P. Hood W'18 Fund
D.2003.52
Geography
Place Made: United States, North America
Period
19th century
Object Name
Drawing
Research Area
Drawing
Not on view
Inscriptions
Inscribed, signed, and dated, in pen and ink, lower center: American Buzzard or White Breasted Hawk A. Willson / Falco Leverianus- / drawn from Life by J. J. Audubon at Henderson K.Y-; numbered, in pen and ink, lower left: No 82-; inscribed, in pen and ink over graphite, lower right: A. 4 feet / L. T. 21 Inch / Weight 34 oz] / [illegible] 12- WATERMARK: along upper right edge: J. Whatman / 180[4?]
Label
Representing artistic depictions of birds spanning over 100 years, these three works reflect the multiple and sometimes fraught relationships between human and non-human beings. Within Acoma and other Pueblo communities, birds—and in this case the parrot or macaw—have long served as connections between people and the gods who live in the upper or sky world. Birds, which can carry messages or prayers for rain, are often depicted on ollas or water jars like the one here, marking a connection between the object’s form and its function.
Walton Ford is known for his meticulously executed images of animals in a style resembling John James Audubon’s naturalistic scenes, such as the white breasted hawk on the right of this grouping, with a critical twist. Ford’s print on the left features the Carolina parakeet, which was declared extinct in 1939 as a result of agricultural deforestation and farmers killing large numbers of the birds that were considered pests. Unlike Audubon’s pastel, Ford’s rendering is more than observational, giving voice to the now-extinct parakeet.
From the 2022 exhibition This Land: American Engagement with the Natural World, curated by Jami C. Powell, Curator of Indigenous Art; Barbara J. MacAdam, former Jonathan L. Cohen Curator of American Art; Thomas H. Price, former Curatorial Assistant; Morgan E. Freeman, former DAMLI Native American Art Fellow; and Michael Hartman, Jonathan Little Cohen Associate Curator of American Art
Course History
ANTH 7.05, Animals and Humans, Laura Ogden, Winter 2022
GEOG 31.01, Postcolonial Geographies, Erin Collins, Winter 2022
ANTH 50.05, Environmental Archaeology, Madeleine McLeester, Winter 2022
ANTH 50.05, Environmental Archaeology, Madeleine McLeester, Winter 2022
ARTH 5.01, Introduction to Contemporary Art, Mary Coffey and Chad Elias, Winter 2022
ANTH 3.01, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, Chelsey Kivland, Summer 2022
ANTH 3.01, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, Chelsey Kivland, Summer 2022
SPAN 65.15, Wonderstruck: Archives and the Production of Knowledge in an Unequal World, Silvia Spitta and Barbara Goebel, Summer 2022
Exhibition History
American Works on Paper to 1950: Highlights from the Hood Museum of Art, Friends and Owen Robertson Cheatham Galleries, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, September 22-December 9, 2007.
Israel Sack Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, March 2, 2009-May 2009.
Marks of Distinction: Two Hundred Years of American Drawings and Watercolors from the Hood Museum of Art, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, March 29-May 29, 2005; Grand Rapids Art Museum, Grand Rapids, Michigan, June 24-September 11, 2005; National Academy Museum, New York City, New York, October 20-December 31, 2005.
This Land: American Engagement with the Natural World, Israel Sack Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 5–April 11, 2022.
Publication History
Susanne M. Low, A Guide to Audubon's "Birds of America," (New Haven and New York: William Reese Company & Donald A. Heald, 2002), following p. 22 (color illus.)
Barbara J. MacAdam, Marks of Distinction: Two Hundred Years of American Drawings and Watercolors from the Hood Museum of Art, Manchester, Vermont: Hudson Hills Press, 2005, pp. 20, 27, 41, 56, 58-59, 250-251, ill. p. 20, fig. 16, 57, no. 3.
Barbara J. MacAdam, American Art at Dartmouth: Highlights from the Hood Muesum of Art, Hanover: Trustees of Dartmouth College, 2007, p. 133, no. 105.
Barbara J. MacAdam, Building on Dartmouth's Historic American Collections: Hood Museum of Art Acquisitions since 1985, The Magazine Antiques, November 2007, New York: Brant Publications, color ill. p. 146.
Barbara J. MacAdam, Marks of Distinction: Two Hundred Years of American Drawings and Watercolors from the Hood Museum of Art, American Art Review, Vol. XVII No. 2, April 2005, pp. 86-93, ill p. 87
Provenance
The artist; Elizabeth Torrey Linzee Greene; John Torrey Linzee; to John Linzee Weld, his nephew, by 1897; Jane Weld Brown; by descent in the family; Christie's, New York, "Important American Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture," December 4, 1996, lot 5; sold to Gerald Peters Gallery, New York and Santa Fe, New Mexico; sold to private collection; Phillips, De Pury & Luxembourg, New York, "American Art," May 22, 2001, lot 6; sold to Audubon Galleries (a partnership of Donald A. Heald, New York, and William Reese Company, New Haven, Connecticut); sold to present collection, 2003.
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