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Julije Klović: the first colour drawing of Greater Bird of Paradise Paradisaea apoda in Europe and its model

The prayerbook The Hours of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Horae Beatae Mariae Virginis), known as The Farnese Hours and illustrated by the Croatian miniaturist Juraj Julije Klović between 1539 and 1546 in Rome, is a masterpiece of Renaissance miniature art. On the folio 6v of the prayerbook, Klović drew in colour a bird of paradise. That image had hitherto attracted little detailed and interdisciplinary research. In 2001, the pictured bird was determined to be a Raggiana Bird of Paradise, or Paradisaea raggiana P. L. Sclater, 1873. Our later determination showed that it was actually a Greater Bird of Paradise Paradisaea apoda (Linnaeus, 1758). This finding strenghtened the hypothesis that skins of this species had been among the first birds of paradise in Europe. To our knowledge, there are six representations of birds of paradise in the European visual arts of the sixteenth century, executed in different techniques: drawing either in colour or black and white ; gouache ; woodcut ; and tapestry. The bird of paradise miniature by Klović in The Farnese Hours is the first drawing of a Greater Bird of Paradise in colour in Europe. Klović’ s model was one of the first trade skins of birds of paradise that from 1522 had been arriving to Europe from Indonesia. These skins were highly valued both symbolically, for their presumed unusual origin, and economically, for their unusually decorative feathers that became popular fashion accessories. The cultural milieu in which Klović lived and worked, as well as his contacts with influential persons of the era, have led us to propose that the model for the drawing of P. apoda in The Farnese Hours was a skin from a private collection of natural curiosities or perhaps one brought by Magellan’ s voyage.

Bird of paradise; Greater Bird of Paradise; Paradisaea apoda; Julije Klović; Farnese Hours; trade skins; Europe

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