About This Artwork

Thomas Couture
French, 1815-1879

The Bird Catcher, c. 1857

Oil on canvas
16 x 23 1/2 in. (40.8 x 59.6 cm)
Inscribed on lower wall at left: T.C.
Mr. and Mrs. Lewis Larned Coburn Memorial Collection, 1942.49

Exhibition, Publication and Ownership Histories

Exhibition History

New York, Metropolitan Museum, c. 1890.

Springfield, Mass., Springfield Museum of Fine Arts, From David to Cézanne: Paintings and Drawings, February 9 - March 10, 1935, cat. 6.

Pittsfield, Mass., Berkshire Museum, 1935.

San Francisco Museum of Art, Survey of Landscape Painting, 2-30 June 1936, cat. 22.

College Park, University of Maryland Art Gallery, Thomas Couture: Paintings and Drawings in American Collections, February 5 - March 15, 1970, cat. 31 (ill.).

Houston, Museum of Fine Arts, November 1, 1981 - February 28, 1982 and Toledo, March - April, 1982.

Publication History

Bertauts-Couture, “Thomas Couture, sa technique et son influence sur la peinture française de la second moitie du XIX siècle,” Etudes d’Art 11-12 (1955-1956), p. 203.

The Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings in The Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Picture Collection (Chicago, 1961), p. 108.

Jerome Willard Howe, “Thomas Couture: His Career and Artistic Development,” master thesis (University of Chicago, 1951), no. 117.

Alain de Leixis, “Thomas Couture the Painter,” in Thomas Couture Paintings and Drawings in American Collections exhib. cat. (University of Maryland Art Gallery, 1970), pp. 21, 49, no. 31, p. 59.

Albert Boime, Thomas Couture and the Eclectic Vision (New Haven, 1980), pp. 387-391, pl. IX.128.

Ownership History

William Tilden Blodgett (1823-1875), New York [according to Registrar's accession card]. Julius Weitzner, New York, by 1935 [lent to Springfield 1935] and until at least 1936 [lent to San Francisco 1936]. André Seligmann, New York by 1942; sold to the Art Institute, 1942.