Lot 450
American School, 19th c., "Tromp-l'Oeil of a Dead Flicker", oil on canvas laid down on oval wood panel, unsigned, 17 in. x 13 7/8 in., in a period frame. E2500-3500 Note: Notwithstanding its resemblance to earlier British and Continental trompe-l'oeils of game birds hung up to age, this is certainly an American painting, for its unusual subject is clearly a Northern Flicker (Colaptes auratus), the North American species which John James Audubon called a "Gold-winged Woodpecker" (Birds of America, Havell plate no. 37, 1828); it has the added interest of being represented at about life size. Though it now seems an odd target to have shot, a perusal of the anecdotes about this bird in Audubon's Ornithological Biography (the text intended to accompany his famous plates) may possibly reveal a 19th-c. American willingness to bag Flickers for the table.
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