ART HISTORY ANIMALIA

ANIMAL ART OF THE DAY for Endangered Species Day: Van Gogh’s exotic animals

The 3rd Friday of May is Endangered Species Day. Although Vincent Van Gogh (Dutch, 1853-1890) never traveled outside of Europe, he painted at least two different animals from faraway lands…

ANIMAL ART OF THE DAY for World Binturong Day

Happy World Binturong Day, celebrated annually on the 2nd Saturday in May! This watercolor of a Binturong is from the William Farquhar Collection of Natural History Drawings…

ANIMAL ART OF THE DAY for Wild Koala Day: “Australian Bears and Australian Pears”

Fauna: Koala (Phascolarctos cinereus) (Reminder: not really a bear! It’s a marsupial.)Flora: Western Wooden Pear (Xylomelum occidentale) (Also not a true pear.) While Marianne North is primarily known as a pioneering botanical artist of the nineteenth century, many of her paintings include native fauna as well. Her life’s work of…

The Ghost Birds of Audubon’s Birds of America

This gallery contains 8 photos.

April 26th is Audubon Day. Included in Audubon’s Birds of America collection are illustrations of 5 birds that would soon after become extinct, along with 3 others that are now also feared extinct.

Merian’s Opossum and the Staying Power of Animal Images

Maria Sibylla Merian’s image of a Murine Mouse Opossum (aka Merian’s Opossum and Linnaeus’ Opossum) from Suriname is unusual in that it appears to be the only mammal she ever depicted in her work…

ON THIS DAY: The death of the last known Carolina Parakeet and Audubon’s images of a now-extinct species

It was on this day (21 February) in 1918 that the last known Carolina Parakeet, Incas, died at the Cincinnati Zoo – tragically, in the same cage the last known Passenger Pigeon, Martha, had died only four years earlier. (Even worse, unlike Martha, whose body was sent to the Smithsonian…

ANIMAL ART OF THE DAY for International Zebra Day #2: Zebras in ancient mosaics

This gallery contains 7 photos.

Compared to other well-known African ungulates like giraffes, hippos, & rhinos, zebras are rather rare in ancient mosaics. I’ve only been able to locate 5 examples, all Byzantine from the 5th-6th c…

ANIMAL ART OF THE DAY for International Zebra Day #1: George Edwards, George Stubbs, and the first British zebras

January 31st is International Zebra Day! First up, images of the first known zebras imported into Great Britain.

ANIMAL ART OF THE DAY for Penguin Awareness Day: Japanese penguins?

Haori with Penguins and Icebreaker ShipsJapan, mid-Shōwa period, 1957-58silk plain weave, stencil-printed warp and weft[photos by author] Penguins (Spheniscidae) are found almost exclusively in the Southern Hemisphere, with only the Galápagos penguin (Spheniscus mendiculus) skirting the other side of the equator. They definitely aren’t native to anywhere near Japan! I saw…