Description
A Woodcock Among Reeds
by Archibald Thorburn
Each print is hand numbered, accompanied by a certificate signed by the Master Printer and is numbered to match the print. The editions are limited to 1880 copies.
Paper Size: 32 x 24 ins / 81 x 60 cm
Image Size: 28 x 20 ins / 71 x 50 cm
‘A Woodcock Among Reeds’ depicts a woodcock within a winter scene. The woodcock is in the focal point to the scene and this allows the detail of the bird to be shown. It has a stocky body with a beautiful cryptic brown and blackish plumage and a long slender bill. Having eyes on the sides of their heads, gives them 360° vision.
The woodcock seems undaunted by the frost and will endure a continuing hard spell of winter with quiet determination.
Thorburn was surrounded by some of the most beautiful woodland in the country when he lived in Hascombe, Surrey. There Thorburn found himself amid an abundance of the creatures he loved to sketch and paint. Here most of his pheasant and woodcock pictures of 1902 and onwards were conceived and painted.
The woodcock is perfectly painted and Thorburn probably sketched and painted the bird in the wild as he preferred to do this rather than from a model provided by a taxidermist in a studio.
watermarks do not appear on actual prints
