Aert Schouman was born in Dordrecht in 1710. At age fifteen he became the apprentice of the – otherwise quite unknown – Dordrecht painter Adriaan van der Burg. In 1742 he became head master of the Dordrecht Teekengenootschap Pictura; ca. 1748 he moved to The Hague, where, in 1751, he became regent at the drawing academy, as well as a member of the Confrerie Pictura. Schouman took on his first student in 1733 and continued teaching until his death; among others, he taught the still life painter Jan van Os. Schouman worked primarily in The Hague, although he regularly visited his hometown Dordrecht and also travelled abroad. In 1753 he went to Germany, accompanied by his fellow artists Gerard Hoet II and Johann Georg Freese - they visited Kassel, Dresden and Frankfurt, where, on the way back, Schouman sold his carriage. In 1765/6 and again in 1775 he visited Great Britain, spending most of his time in and around London, as can be attested by various drawings he made there.

Schouman was a prolific and versatile Dutch painter, glass engraver, printmaker, collector and dealer, who produced still lifes, biblical and mythological themes, natural history studies, genre, historical and topographical works, portraits, sketches, etchings and mezzotints. He designed tapestries, painted wall-hangings and decorated objects such as fans, snuffboxes and even the glass windows of a magic lantern. Over his lifetime Schouman amassed a great collection of paintings. Today however, he is best known for his watercolors of plants and animals – especially (exotic) birds, mostly set in park-like or Italianate landscapes. Schouman made whole series of these animal studies, which he had the chance to study in the menagerie of Stadhouder Willem V.

The present charming landscape with birds is a typical work by the artist. [1] The depicted animals range from well-known to more exotic birds, from a pheasant and a spoonbill to the African crowned crane. Representations such as this were very popular in the 18th century as room or hall paintings. This watercolour may have served as a design for such a painted decoration, though it could also have been intended as an independent work of art.

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[1] Similar drawings by Schouman are kept in various institutional collections, such as in Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum, inv. RP-T-FM-137 and inv. RP-T-1898-A-3698).