A tawny brown, long-bodied ferret leaning over a grassy mound in this horizontal painting. The animal’s body creates an arch supported on its short, darker brown legs. Its thin tail is lifted and a dark brown band across its paler, cream-white face resembles a mask. The animal has short claws and compact, rounded ears. The ferret appears to investigate a small nest at the lower center of the painting. The nest is partially hidden among tufts of grass and contains four pale, speckled eggs. Grassy hills roll back to the horizon, which comes halfway up this composition, and a sheet of white…
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Black-Footed Ferret

painter John Woodhouse Audubon (American, 1812 - 1862)

1840/1846

Medium
oil on canvas
Classification
Painting
Dimensions
overall: 55.5 x 68.5 cm (21 7/8 x 26 15/16 in.) ; framed: 62.2 x 75.3 x 1.9 cm (24 1/2 x 29 5/8 x 3/4 in.)
Culture
American
Museum
National Gallery of Art, CAB
Credit line
Gift of E.J.L. Hallstrom
Rights
Public domain (NGA Open Access, CC0), as the museum states it.
Who can see it
Little Ones profiles and older: it shows gentle subjects for the very young. How works are placed

View at the National Gallery of Art

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