Orchid Blossoms
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
unframed: 38.1 × 30.6 cm · framed: 47.6 × 40 × 7 cm
Classification
Painting
Department
American Painting and Sculpture
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Hinman B. Hurlbut Collection
Accession Number
1915.461
Rights
Public Domain
Tags
About this artwork
In 1863 Heade took the first of three trips to South America, with an amateur naturalist, the Reverend C. J. Fletcher, to do studies for a projected (though never published) book on hummingbirds. As an outgrowth of that experience, Heade made a large number of paintings of birds and flowers, especially orchids, in a tropical setting. In this way he combined his main interests of still life and landscape--a union of themes he maintained in his work into the 20th century. The paintings are charact...