Lijst van vogels in het zevende deel van de vogels 1809 - 1814

This list of birds in the seventh volume of birds was created by Joseph van Huerne. Bound together with thread and glue, the compilation of paper, ink and leather represents a significant amount of largely unacknowledged labor. Consider the conditions under which this list was made. The handmade paper, prepared with linen rags, would have been costly. Its surface is marked with horizontal lines from the mould used to form the sheet. The even, elegant handwriting speaks to the scribe’s considerable skill and practice. The categorization of the birds themselves would have been the result of direct observation, and perhaps even hunting. While such a document would likely have been considered scientific rather than artistic at the time, today, we can appreciate it as a confluence of many skills. It also speaks to the social networks of which van Huerne was a part, one in which the classification of the natural world was a source of knowledge and status. Understanding these historical and material relationships allows us to broaden our definitions of art.