A Treatise on Parrots, by Henry Stacy Marks R.A.,R.W.S., H.R.C.A. (1829-1898)

A Treatise on Parrots. 1885. Oil on canvas and panel. 42 x 30 1/8 inches (108.2 x 76.5 cm). Collection of Sudley House, Liverpool, accession no. WAG267. Image via Art UK, kindly released on the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial licence (CC BY-NC).

A Treatise on Parrots, another of Marks's paintings featuring birds, was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1885, no. 248. The painting shows an elderly gentleman in his dressing gown with a red cap on his head, and spectacles down on his nose, sitting at a table in his study and closely examining one of the specimens of birds he is writing about for his dissertation on parrots. Examples of various species can be seen perched to his right. Another large stuffed parrot is sitting on a perch in the right foreground in front of a Regency side table covered in books. The scholar is writing his observations down with a quill pen and multiple pages of his forthcoming manuscript can be seen scattered about the floor. On the wall behind the man is a large Regency period convex mirror and a pair of wall sconces for holding candles. In 1893 Marks used the same model for a man sitting at a desk and studying animal skulls in his "Of making books there is no end: and much study is a weariness of the flesh" (Morris 298).

The painting was accompanied in the catalogue by the following quotation:

Splendid in hue, and delicate in form,
God's feathered fairies, birds whose very effigies
In which but sound and movement lack to life,
Plumage, shape, colour, all remaining, still
Enchant the eye, and stir the dreaming heart:
And so the life-long lover of sweet fowls,
Old, calm, and solitary, feels the glow,
The love of science and the love of art,
Which stir the tender soul, yet strongly drawn
To worship the Creator in His works.

Marks later showed this painting at the Royal Jubilee Exhibition in Manchester in 1887, no. 130.

When it was shown first, at the Royal Academy, the painting was widely but not extensively reviewed. The Art Journal merely referred to it as: "Mr. Stacy MarksTreatise on Parrots (248), a snuff-coloured ornithologist cataloguing his brilliant-plumaged treasures" (258). The Builder noted: "Mr. Marks's quiet and luminous painting (248), A Treatise on Parrots is in his best manner" (686).

F. G. Stephens in The Athenaeum found this work less attractive than Marks's other submission A Good Story: "A Treatise on Parrots (248), although technically nearly equal, is less attractive. It represents an elderly gentleman, of the class Mr. Marks has frequently depicted with skill and designed with humour, seated at a table, in his dressing gown and a red cap, and studying with deep earnestness a quaint green bird, while an array of stuffed parrots – whose odd expressions are very amusing – appear at his side. The best part of the design is the deliberating expression of the student's countenance" (572).

A critic for The Spectator found the work exquisitely painted despite giving its title incorrectly:

We prefer the small, one-figure composition, entitled A Lecture on Parrots, which, besides its graphic humour, is one of the most exquisitely painted pictures which we have ever seen in the Academy. Let us not be misunderstood, Mr. Marks’s painting is of the very reverse kind to what the French artists would like; it belongs rather to the old Dutch school and its peculiarity lies rather in concealing its method than revealing it frankly. But if we accept its aim, it would be hard to find a better example than the Lecture on Parrots. [784]