Bruno Liljefors — Bullfinches on Winter Stems, 1885

Painted in 1885, this small study belongs to the early period when Liljefors was teaching himself to look at single birds the way later painters would have to relearn the world. Two bullfinches feed on the dry seed-heads of a winter plant, close enough to the viewer that the eye can read the soft underbelly of each bird as well as its more familiar red.

Compared with his later, more expansive winter scenes, the canvas is quiet and compressed. There is no landscape behind the figures — just the muted background of a cold day and the patient attention of the painter. It is, in many ways, the seed from which his later wildlife work grew.

Printed on A6 stock — a considered postcrossing send for ornithologists or a small framed piece for the kind of correspondent who appreciates an early study from a great wildlife painter.

Browse the full Bruno Liljefors postcard collection.