Arthur Nevin Red-Breasted Merganser Duck Decoy Print

Details

Description

Arthur Nevin Duck Decoy Print, Red-Breasted Merganser Hen Decoy, Beach Haven, New Jersey, Signed Color Etching, Framed
American, Circa 1975–1985

… Read more Arthur Nevin Duck Decoy Print, Red-Breasted Merganser Hen Decoy, Beach Haven, New Jersey, Signed Color Etching, Framed
American, Circa 1975–1985

Arthur Nevin's signed and numbered color etching portrays a Red-breasted Merganser hen decoy from Beach Haven, New Jersey, dated 1935 in the artist's pencil inscription. The decoy is shown in strict profile on the blank sheet, with no water and no landscape, so that it reads as a carved object rather than a living bird. The head is rust red with a notched, carved crest, a white cheek mark and white throat, and a long, slender orange-red bill; it sits on the body at a visible neck joint. The back is soft gray, the tail striped in black and white, and the wing carries a white speculum crossed by a black bar. Below, the pale breast and sides are drawn as weathered wood, with a knot near the tail and checks running along the grain, while a seam along the length of the body, notched at the breast, suggests the two-piece hollow construction of the Barnegat Bay makers.

The print is inscribed with the subject in pencil below the image at the left, signed by the artist at the center right and numbered 102/150 at the right. It is presented in a limed oak frame with a wide white mat and a narrow wood-toned inner fillet.

The print suits a study, library or country house, and its muted grays and rust tones sit comfortably with wood paneling, leather and sporting or coastal interiors. It hangs well on its own or paired with the firm's companion Nevin print of a Mallard Hen decoy from Bay Head, New Jersey, framed to match.

Dimensions (Framed)
Height: 23 5/8 inches (60.0 cm)
Width: 30 5/8 inches (77.8 cm)
Depth: 5/8 inch (1.6 cm)

Marks
Inscribed in pencil "REDBRESTED MERGANSER HEN DECOY, BEACH HAVEN, N.J. 1935"; signed "Arthur Nevin"; numbered 102/150.

Provenance
Earle D. Vandekar of Knightsbridge

Condition
Good.

References
Joel Barber, Wild Fowl Decoys (New York: Windward House, 1934).
Thomas Denenberg, Kory W. Rogers, Nancie Ravenel and Cynthia Byrd, Birds of a Feather: Wildfowl Decoys at Shelburne Museum (New York: Skira Rizzoli, 2017).

Historical Context
Arthur Finley Nevin (1929–2020) was born in Manhattan and came to decoys as a boy, hunting with his father in the marshes of the Eastern Seaboard. Joel Barber, a friend of his father's and one of the first serious decoy collectors, was a lasting influence; Barber's Wild Fowl Decoys of 1934 was the first book to treat the working decoy as an American art form, and his gift of more than 400 decoys founded the collection at Shelburne Museum in 1952. After twelve years of military service, Nevin and his wife Gladys opened a gallery and frame shop in Quakertown, Pennsylvania, where he ran an etching workshop for other artists and began making intaglio prints of the decoys in his own collection. He confined his work almost entirely to the decoy, which he regarded as the one truly original American art form, issuing each subject in a signed edition of 150, and the prints brought him national and international recognition in the 1980s and 1990s.

(Ref: NY8167-A-iam) See less