For Gustave Doré watercolour was “an artistic shorthand of a special nature”. This study is a
virtuoso demonstration of this shorthand. Around the red parrot touches of blue outline a group of
cockatoos, recognisable by their crested crowns. The wet brush, tinted with a hint of green or grey,
sketches other silhouettes with outstretched wings in a light and supple line, suggesting a presence in just
three lines. Shapeless patches of wash make the bouncing bellies of the birds appear. The drawing reflects
how Doré, with sure and rapid gestures, transfers an image directly from his mind to the paper.

This study was most probably the initial idea for one of the four large watercolours he produced
on the theme of exotic birds circa 1880. These exceptional works, over a metre and a half high, were
part of the collection of Herbert Ward, an English sculptor and illustrator who went on to explore Africa
with Henry Morton Stanley from 1887 until 1889 . In one of the paintings the composition is likewise
centred on a red parrot flanked by two cockatoos. The motif is similarly treated in a watercolour of the
same format as ours, kept in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Strasbourg, and in Exotic Tropical Birds in a
Landscape sold by Stephen Ongpin in 2018.

Doré long considered watercolour to be a technique reserved for
study and as such his watercolours were meant to remain in the studio.
It was only at the end of his life that he agreed to show watercolours
in public, having been invited to exhibit at the Société des Aquarellists
Français, when it was founded in 1879.

Doré’s posthumous studio sale in April 1885 included four
watercolours and one painting of tropical birds, while the retrospective
exhibition of the artist’s works on paper, held in Paris earlier in the same
year, included two watercolours of parrots lent from private collections.