Artwork
Ivory-billed Woodpeckers
Ivory-billed Woodpeckers is an oil painting by the Romanticist artist Joseph Bartholomew Kidd. It dates from 1830 and is held in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
About this work
Technique & Style
It is a painting depicting a bird, created by Joseph Bartholomew Kidd in 1830.
Oil on canvas, the work measures 99.7 cm in height and 66.7 cm in width. It is a painting depicting a bird, created by Joseph Bartholomew Kidd in 1830. The composition emphasizes the bird's distinctive plumage and beak, rendered with precise brushwork that captures the texture of feathers and the dynamic posture of the creature.
The surface is handled with smooth application of oil paint, allowing subtle gradations of color to suggest depth and movement, while the formal qualities balance naturalistic detail with a restrained compositional structure.
History & Provenance
Ivory-billed Woodpeckers is an oil on canvas work by Joseph Bartholomew Kidd dated 1830. According to the Wikidata record for the painting, its inception year is 1830, and it is held in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where it remains located. No further information about commission, intermediate ownership, or acquisition history is documented in the available sources.
The painting is held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where it is accessioned as part of The American Wing’s holdings. It entered the museum’s collection as an oil on canvas by Joseph Bartholomew Kidd, painted in 1830, with dimensions of 99.7 cm in height and 66.7 cm in width. The work has not been recorded as part of any major traveling exhibitions in the museum’s provenance documentation.
Overview
Joseph Bartholomew Kidd’s oil on canvas, dated around 1830, presents a pair of sizable woodpeckers perched on a tree trunk. The birds are rendered in stark black and white, each crowned with a vivid red crest that contrasts sharply with the surrounding bark. The composition captures a moment of stillness, emphasizing the birds’ form and the texture of the tree.
Subject & Meaning
The work portrays the ivory‑billed woodpecker, a species once widespread in the southeastern United States and now presumed extinct, with the last reliable observation recorded in the 1940s. By depicting these birds in a lifelike manner, the painting serves as a visual record of a vanished element of North American wildlife, evoking a sense of loss and natural history.
Context
Created during a period of expanding scientific interest in North American fauna, the piece reflects the early nineteenth‑century drive to catalog and illustrate the continent’s natural world. The ivory‑billed woodpecker, then still common, was a subject of particular fascination for naturalists and artists alike, symbolizing the richness of the region’s forests.
Artist & collection
