Martin Johnson Heade 1819 - 1904

Dr. Annella Brown, New York (sold: Sotheby Parke Bernet, New York, April 25, 1980, lot 39)
Kennedy Galleries, New York (acquired at the above sale)
Acquired by the present owner from the above, 1980

Theodore E. Stebbins, Jr., The Life and Work of Martin Johnson Heade: A Critical Analysis and Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven, Connecticut, 1999, no. 375, p. 294, illustrated

Please contact the department at 212-606-7280 to obtain a copy of the condition report prepared by Simon Parkes Art Conservation.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Martin Johnson Heade's lifelong obsessive interest in the hummingbird was self-diagnosed; in an 1892 interview he described himself as "almost a monomaniac" when it came to the vividly colored and iridescently feathered birds most commonly found in South America. This boyhood enthrallment stayed with the artist through his early years of training with Edward Hicks, his more formal studies at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and later trips to Europe where he honed his growing versatility with a wide range of subject mater.

In 1859 Heade forged a pivotal relationship when he struck up a friendship with Frederic Church.  The two shared space at the Tenth Street Studio Building where Heade likely witnessed the unveiling of Church's The Heart of the Andes (1859, Metropolitan Museum of Art), which won him international acclaim, and inspired more than one artist to travel to the tropics of South America in search of exotic subject matter. While Church had largely followed in the naturalist Alexander von Humboldt's footsteps in Columbia and Ecuador, Heade headed to Brazil in 1863 to explore the natural wonders of this new world. He noted at the time "there is probably no country where a person interested in ornithology, entomology, botany, mineralogy or beautiful scenery could find so much to keep him entertained ." (quoted in The Life and Works of Martin John Heade, 2000, pp. 62-63)  Heade spent the next two years focused on his beloved hummingbirds, documenting their plumage, habits, environments, and diets in notebooks, sketches and paintings.  With an eye to the commercial success of John James Audubon's Birds of America, Heade intended to publish an album of chromolithographs based on his paintings to be titled "The Gems of Brazil."  Unfortunately during the ensuing years in London and America he was unable to secure the two-hundred subscribers required to fund the publication and the project languished.

Hummingbirds and Apple Blossoms depicts a male and female ruby-throated hummingbird perched on an apple blossom branch, uniquely set against a pastoral spring landscape receding into the background. It's size and compositional format are nearly identical to Ruby Throat of North America, 1865 (Private Collection), a work which, according to Ted Stebbins, the artist probably painted in London with the intention of including it in the Gems of Brazil, despite it's decidedly American subject matter. The Ruby-Throated hummingbird is actually one of only four species indigenous to North America and the only one inhabiting the Eastern part of the country. Heade had a particular fondness for the Ruby-Throated, stating in an article near the end of his life: "In the spring all the male birds are in gorgeous attire, and although there are some more magnificent specimens in South America, there are but few more beautiful" (MJH, Forest and Stream, Taming Hummingbirds, April 14, 1892).  He was also adamant about working from living birds and placing them in their actual habitats, as opposed to John Gould whose impressive monograph on hummingbirds, Monograph of the Trochilidae (1849-1861), was drawn from specimens and featured fauna chosen purely for decorative effect. Comparatively, Heade's choice of the apple blossom was a scientifically accurate one inspired by his ornithological perspective.  

While the Gems of Brazil would never achieve the financial success Heade originally sought, the paintings which were to serve as templates for the project proved to be a commercial windfall.  Exhibitions of the works in South America and London were so well-received and the paintings so sought-after by collectors that the artist would go on to produce approximately forty-five similar canvases.  As Heade wrote from London on September 24, 1864 to his friend John R. Bartlett in Rhode Island: "I doubt whether you'll ever see any of the original Humming Birds, for I can get such prices for them here that I can't afford to take them home to sell for one fourth of what I can get here" (Janet Comey / Ted Stebbins, Jr., Martin Johnson Heade, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1999, p. 73)   The American subject matter of Hummingbirds and Apple Blossoms, painted around the time that Heade was returning to the United States, suggests it was possibly a commissioned work intended for an American collector.