446 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 



Some of the criticism, whether friendly or hostile, which 

 this work eventually evoked will be considered in a later 

 chapter. 



Shortly after his arrival in London, Audubon re- 

 ceived a call from Joseph Bartholomew Kidd, a young 

 artist whom he had met at Edinburgh the previous 

 March, and was attracted so much by his "youth, sim- 

 plicity and cleverness" that he again invited him to 

 paint in his rooms. On the 31st of March, 1831, an 

 agreement was made with Kidd 9 to copy some of his 

 drawings in oils and put in appropriate backgrounds. 

 "It was our intention," said Audubon, "to send them 

 to the exhibition for sale, and to divide the amount 

 between us. He painted eight, and then I proposed, if 

 he would paint the one hundred engravings which com- 

 prise my first volume of the Birds of America, I would 

 pay him one hundred pounds." In 1832 Captain 

 Thomas Brown gave this notice of the undertaking in 

 the Caledonian Mercury: 



About a year ago Audubon conceived the grand idea of a 

 Natural History Gallery of Paintings, and entered into an 

 agreement with Mr. Kidd to copy all his drawings of the same 

 size, and in oil, leaving to the taste of that excellent artist to 

 add such backgrounds as might give them a more pictorial 

 effect. In the execution of such of these as Mr. Kidd has fin- 

 ished, he has not only preserved all the vivacious character of 

 the originals, but he has greatly heightened their beauty, by 

 the general tone and appropriate feeling which he has pre- 

 served and carried throughout his pictures. 



Kidd worked intermittently on some such scheme 

 for about three years, and produced numerous pictures 



9 Kidd, who was twenty-three at the time he began to work for Audubon, 

 died in 1889, when he had attained his eighty-first year. 



