Samuel Howitt (British, 1765-1822)

Yellow Bear [American Black Bear, cinnamon phase (Ursus americanus Pallas, 1780)]
Watercolor and pencil on paper
Signed and inscribed: ‘Howitt / Yellow Bear / New York / Major __ / New York’
Paper size: 7 x 4 1/4 in.; mount size: 7 5/8 x 10 in.
Inventory no. AP02625

The pale, buff-brown bear Howitt calls a “Yellow Bear” is the American black bear in one of its light color phases. Although most eastern populations are black, the species, which ranges across the forests of North America from Alaska and Canada to northern Mexico, regularly produces brown, cinnamon, blond, and even bluish-gray individuals, especially in the West. Fur traders sorted the skins by color, and well into the nineteenth century travelers’ reports of “brown,” “cinnamon,” and “yellow” bears led naturalists to wonder whether several species were involved. The term “cinnamon bear” itself entered print in about 1820.

The inscription records a New York source and a “Major,” linking the sheet to the group of North American subjects that Howitt drew in the second decade of the century, almost certainly from a skin or mounted specimen rather than a living animal. If, as we propose, the Major is Charles Hamilton Smith, who traveled in the United States and Canada in 1816 and 1817, the drawing documents the transatlantic exchange of specimens and sketches on which British knowledge of American mammals then depended. Howitt’s rendering of the deep, plush coat, and of the bear’s distinctive straight facial profile, is among the finest in the group.

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.