Pasta for Nightingales
A 17th-Century Handbook of Bird-Care and Folklore
European robin, Erithacus rubecula (L. 1758)
circa 1619circa 1622Watercolour and bodycolour over black chalk; the outlined incised. Brush and ink (cage and background); red chalk (bird in cage). Trimmed at bottom and right; mount G type | 13.6 x 19.2 cm (sheet of paper) | RCIN 927626
This drawing of a European robin was commissioned from the artist Vincenzo Leonardi by the seventeenth-century Roman patron and collector Cassiano dal Pozzo to illustrate a 1622 treatise on birds by Giovanni Pietro Olina titled L'Uccelliera, ovvero discorso della natura e proprietà di diversi uccelli ('The Aviary, or Discourse on the Nature and Characteristics of Diverse Birds'); the engraving by Jerome David based on this drawing appears on fol. 15 verso of this book.
See Birds, Other Animals and Natural Curiosities, Part B.IV/V of The Paper Museum of Cassiano dal Pozzo: A Catalogue Raisonné (2 vols, Royal Collection Trust 2017), vol. 1, cat. 81.
