“_THE BIRD CATCHERS._”
Mr. Stark, the landscape painter, supplied the following interesting
notice of this famous picture:--
“In order to make himself thoroughly acquainted with the process of
bird-catching, he (Collins) went into the fields (now the Regent’s
Park) before sunrise, and paid a man to instruct him in the whole
mystery; and I believe if the arrangement of the nets, cages, and
decoy birds, with the disposition of the figures, lines connected with
the nets, and birds attached to the sticks, were to be examined by
a Whitechapel bird-catcher, he would pronounce them to be perfectly
correct. He was unable to proceed with the picture for some days,
fancying that he wanted the assistance of Nature in a piece of broken
foreground; and whilst this impression remained, he said he should be
unable to do more. I went with him to Hampstead Heath; and although he
was not successful in meeting with anything that suited his purpose, he
felt that he could then finish the picture; but while the impression
was on his mind that anything could be procured likely to lead to
the perfection of the work, he must satisfy himself by making the
effort--even if it proved fruitless. I have perhaps said more on this
picture than you may deem necessary; but it was the first work of this
description that I had been acquainted with, and the only picture,
excepting those of my late master, Crome, that I had ever seen in
progress. Moreover, I believe it to have been the first picture of its
particular class ever produced in this country; and this, both in
subject and treatment, in a style so peculiarly your late father’s, and
one which has gained for him so much fame.”