Two Birds and an Insect

Description for blind and low-vision visitors

A horizontal composition holding two birds and one insect on a tan ground. The larger bird fills the centre, its long body worked in dense rows of coloured dots in dark red, green, yellow and blue, laid over looping arabesques outlined in white. A green shoulder patch scattered with pale scrolls sits above it, and behind that a spread of long feathers opens to the right in red, green, black, yellow and blue, each plume drawn with a white central shaft and fine barbs. The small dark head carries one white almond eye and a very long tapering pink bill that points down to the left. Two pink legs, the nearer one thick and shaggy, end in black arrow-shaped toes. Below the bill, at the lower left, sits a bristled insect: an oval body divided into a red and yellow shell painted with white spirals and a green, black and pink dotted back, ringed all around with black bristles; its small green head has a round eye, two white antennae tipped with beads, and three pale legs. Above and to the left a second, smaller bird flies with its wings spread, the body wine red and covered in white scrolls, the head small and olive green, the tail a fan of white, red, blue and yellow plumes, one black foot tucked beneath. At the right stand two green stalks veined in yellow, with two yellow oval forms outlined in black floating beside them. The ground behind is filled with short curved dashes in cream, pale blue, green and red that swirl in wide currents across the sheet. The signature is painted in black at the lower center.