LUCKNOW SCHOOL (18th Century).
Black-Necked Stork.
Body color, captioned in ink and pencil on European laid paper.
Lucknow, ca. 1775-1785.
Inscribed center bottom in persian.
24 1/2" x 18 1/2" sheet, 34 1/2" x 28 1/2" framed.

Provenance: Major General Claude Martin (1735-1800); Private Collection, America.

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The Lucknow School of natural history painting evolved out of a number of artistic traditions, but most importantly it can be seen as an offshoot of Mughal miniature painting. Miniaturists in North India had been depicting birds as the main subject of paintings for centuries. With the advent of large scale colonization, local artists began to apply their skills to commission from Western patrons. Typically, this involved adapting their styles to fit a new set of demands: they began increasing the format, realism, and quantity of their works.

The most prominent collector of ornithological paintings in Lucknow was Major General Claude Martin (1735-1800). A true Renaissance man, Martin held many titles in his life; a soldier, an architect and builder, a collector and connoisseur, a businessman, a balloonist, a gunsmith, and an educator. His exploits have been documented in numerous books and biographies. His collection of ornithological paintings far surpasses any of his contemporaries.

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The Black-Necked Stork is depicted standing on a characteristic small-scale river landscape, casting a dark "V" shaped shadow. The Stork is a quintessential example of late-Mughal natural history painting. It is posed on a landscape, and details of the bird are well rendered and lifelike, but the overall pose is quite rigid. The iridescence of the feathers are particularly striking.

Zayn Al-Din also painted a Black-Necked Stork for Lady Mary Impey in 1781. That painting is housed at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.

The Black-Necked Stork is a large and characteristic stork. The adults have large black wings, white undersides and iridescent green-black necks and heads. Their bills are large and black. Genus Ephippiorhynchus is unique among storks in showing sexual dimorphism in coloration: iris dark brown in males and yellow in females. Juvenile black-necked storks are mostly dull brown.