Samuel Howitt (British, 1765-1822)

Polar Bear [Ursus maritimus Phipps, 1774]
Watercolor and pencil on paper
Signed ‘Howitt’

Paper size: 7 1/8 x 4 1/4"

Mount size: 7 5/8 x 10"

Frame size: 16 x 13"

Inventory no. AP02617

The polar bear inhabits the sea ice and coasts of the Arctic Ocean, from Alaska and the Canadian Arctic Archipelago to Greenland, Svalbard, and the Russian Arctic. Howitt places his bear against a backdrop of ice peaks, its long neck and narrow head lowered in the searching attitude characteristic of the species.

The animal had a long history in England: a “white bear” sent to Henry III in 1252 was famously allowed to fish in the Thames on a lead from the Tower of London. Its scientific description, however, came only in 1774, when Constantine John Phipps named Ursus maritimus in the account of his voyage toward the North Pole the previous year, a voyage on which the young Horatio Nelson served as a midshipman. By Howitt’s time, Arctic whaling and the renewed search for the Northwest Passage, launched by the Admiralty in 1818, had made the polar bear an emblem of British maritime ambition.

A country gentleman from Chigwell, in Essex, Samuel Howitt’s entry into the world of art was prompted as a means of meeting financial obligations which he incurred as a result of his carefree nature.  In reaction to his solid Quaker upbringing, Howitt was an active participant in the thriving London social scene of gambling, hunting, fishing, and sporting.  He could often be found making the rounds of London’s drinking houses with his brother-in-law, the noted caricaturist, and watercolorist, Thomas Rowlandson.  His marriage to Rowlandson’s sister was not a success and apparently his passion for fishing and sporting excursions led to their separation.

Howitt’s initial artistic efforts were somewhat crude, but his natural talents quickly and skillfully progressed to a remarkable degree. Some of his individual works were exhibited at the Royal Academy between 1783 and 1815.  His quick fretted outlines, which were then washed in, reflect the influence of Rowlandson.  He was prolific in oil and watercolor, and as a printmaker and his lighthearted, boisterous works appeared in numerous sporting and other publications.  In 1808 he provided illustrations for The Angler’s Manual.  In 1812, 70 of his illustrations appeared in the British Sportsman, and later a large group appeared in The Old Sporting Magazine.  

However, Howitt’s best-known work is Oriental Field Sports, a collection of 40 attractive and dramatic aquatints drawn by Howitt after the original sketches of his friend Captain Thomas Williamson.  The main purpose of the book was the explication and illustration of the excitement and peculiarities of Indian game hunting, both big and small.  Williamson had explored the innermost regions of Bengal in search of the exotic Asian prize and from his sketches, Howitt produced some of the most prized images of big-game hunting.

His habit of drawing animals from life at the Tower of London was the basis of the 1811 A New Work of Animals, 56 carefully executed designs based on the fables of Aesop. It is likely that the Tower of London was also the source for many of the watercolors of animals and birds here presented, although the notation of Bullock on some would indicate that he also used specimens from this renowned dealer in animal skins.  

The companion album to the collection is now in London’s Natural History Museum and forms part of the holdings of the famed banker, Baron Rothschild of Tring.  Rothschild was a keen amateur scientist and from the age of seven started collecting specimens.  He founded the Zoological Museum at Tring, opening it to the public in 1892.  Moreover, he wrote several articles on ornithology and held distinguished positions as Trustee of the Natural History Museum, Chairman of the British Ornithologists’ Club (1913-1918) and President of the British Ornithologist’s Union (1923-1928).  

It is not certain as to when the two albums of Howitt’s drawings were divided and thus difficult to establish a definite provenance to the Rothschild collection for the set pictured here.  However, they are fine examples of the work of one of the leading natural history painters of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.