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Jacob Bogdani, born in Hungary and active in London from 1688, painted these “fowl pieces” for elite patrons including Queen Anne. This collection of exotic species is a testament to the expansion of the British Empire by the early eighteenth century. The birds are gathered in an English landscape with a country cottage, where they mingle with English species (a mallard preens its feathers at the lower left and another flies off in the distance). The exotic birds were brought back to European menageries, where they evoked the distant colonies. The bright red bodies of the South American scarlet macaw (right) and the smaller North American cardinal flying into the scene (top left), frame the central mass of white and brown fowl dominated by the Muscovy duck.

Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2016