Bird’s Nest and Ferns

A bird’s nest, its interior lined with soft down, sits among unfurling fern fronds, each leaf and twig drawn with a botanist’s fidelity. Fidelia Bridges was one of the few American women painters to make a career of nature subjects in the 1860s, exhibiting her nests, flowers and birds at the National Academy while the Civil War raged — her precise, affectionate studies were prized as chromolithographs as well as paintings. Signed and dated 1863, this small panel shows the exactness and tenderness that made her reputation. The painting is held in the Art Institute of Chicago.