Three Flamingos near a Basin, 1872
Price range: £140.00 through £255.00
One flamingo stoops to drink from a stone basin, one dozes on a single leg with its head tucked away, a third twists round to preen, and a starling has dropped in to bathe at the water’s edge. August Allebé worked the scene up in 1872 from sketches made on the spot at the zoo, in chalk and watercolour, with a brightness that surprised even the Rijksmuseum.
Allebé spent most of his life teaching Amsterdam’s young painters to draw, and here he simply looked, and kept looking, until three awkward birds became something close to a dance. It brings a slow afternoon calm to a wall: pink, green and sunlit reed, and nobody in a hurry.
The print
Print Quality: Gallery-standard archival pigment giclée, made to order
Media: 308gsm 100% cotton Hahnemühle Photo Rag
Texture & Tone: Super-matte, smooth chalky finish with soft, muted blacks
Longevity: Museum-grade, generational permanence
Photo Rag’s smooth cotton adds no texture of its own, so the fine chalk lines, soft washes of watercolour and the tone of Allebé’s original sheet come through just as he left them.
Sizes available:
42×59cm, 17×23″, fine art print, open edition
59×84cm, 23×33″, fine art print, open edition
70×100cm, 28×39″, fine art print, open edition
Safe, tracked delivery guaranteed worldwide, with sustainable packaging.
The story
August Allebé was born in Amsterdam in 1838 and became one of the most influential teachers in Dutch art. As professor and later director of the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam, he trained a whole generation of painters, among them George Hendrik Breitner. Animals were a lifelong love: he drew them again and again from life, from lions and monkeys to a rhinoceros half sunk in water.
This sheet, made in 1872, is a finished drawing in black chalk and watercolour, 49.5 × 34.3 cm, built up in the studio from quick sketches made at the zoo. The Rijksmuseum, which bought it in 1971, notes how bright and natural its colours are. In his early work Allebé preferred dark browns and reds, and the museum suggests that all his drawing out of doors may have changed his palette.
