Details

Title

Two Hummingbirds with an Orchid

Artist/Maker

Martin Johnson Heade (American, 1819–1904)

Date

1875

Medium

Oil on canvas

Dimensions

17 9/16 x 27 1/2 inches

Credit

Purchase with David, Helen, and Marian Woodward Fund

Accession #

76.3

Location

On View - Stent Family Wing, Level 3, Gallery 307

With entrepreneurial hopes of creating a book of prints similar to John James Audubon’s popular Birds of America, Martin Johnson Heade made three trips to South America in the 1860s searching for exotic flora and fauna to paint. He became captivated by hummingbirds and even kept them as pets. This scene was probably inspired by a trip to Jamaica in 1870, when the artist began to add orchids to his paintings. The sexual connotations of orchids and hummingbirds may have accounted in part for their contemporary popularity.

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