One of the smallest and most purely beautiful works in the collection — a single bird, rendered in the East Asian ink-and-wash tradition Sidney mastered in the bamboo works, placed slightly off-center on a large pale ground. The bird stands quietly, its body turned to the right, its beak slightly elevated.
The painting technique is remarkable in its economy: the entire bird is rendered in perhaps twelve marks. The body is two washes of pale blue watercolor — a larger wash for the wing and a smaller one for the breast — with a darker blue accent at the shoulder. The beak and eye are a single confident black line each. The feet are three brief marks. Nothing more is needed, and nothing more is present.
The relationship to the bamboo paintings is direct: the same ink-and-watercolor combination, the same white paper as positive space, the same confidence of placement. Sidney clearly worked in the East Asian brush tradition across multiple subjects — bamboo, plum blossom branch (725), birds — developing a consistent vocabulary within that tradition.
The blue of the bird is slightly cooler and more saturated than the bamboo washes, suggesting deliberate color choice. The pale blue paper ground — slightly warm — gives the bird a setting without describing one.
At this small scale, with this economy of means, Sidney made something perfect.