Audubon Again: Another Look at the Fair Incognito

Audubon's Gyrfalcon: featured image for Audubon Again post.

I have been thinking and writing about Audubon’s story of the Fair Incognito, the woman who commissioned him to draw her portrait in the nude, for the past two or three years. I kept returning to the subject because I never thought I really understood why the artist felt compelled to set this story down … Read more

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Audubon Draws a Nude: A Commission He Couldn’t Refuse, Part Two

Portrait of Audubon by John Syme.

I spent a year at the University of Toronto reading the epic poem Beowulf in the original Anglo-Saxon. The prof for that class was Laurence K. Shook, a Basilian priest who had a special interest in the riddles contained in an Old English manuscript called the Exeter Book. These riddles all take the form of … Read more

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Audubon Draws a Nude: A Commission He Couldn’t Refuse, Part One

Portrait of Audubon by John Syme.

When she stops him on the Rue Royale, she’s wearing a dark veil that makes it impossible to see her face. Even so, he can tell she is “a femelle of a fine form.” She speaks to him in French because she knows it’s his native tongue. Is he the man who draws the birds … Read more

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