Happy Turkey Day!

"Today's theme show is brought to you by Dutch Art Nouveau lithographer and illustrator Theo van Hoytema. He was born in The Hague in 1863, the son of the Secretary-General of the Ministry of Finance. His attempt to follow in his father's footsteps went no further than a brief job at his brothers' bank. Art was his true vocation, particularly drawings of animals."

"In 1892, he published his first lithographed booklet, How the Birds Got a King, and achieved notable success with his 1893 follow-up, an illustrated edition of Hans Christian Andersen's The Ugly Duckling. He earned his greatest fame with a series of lithograph calendars published every year from 1902 until 1918, the last of them published posthumously. Birds were again his main subjects, although other wildlife made it into the monthly illustrations too."

"They were originally imports to Europe, of course, but by the time Theo van Hoytema was capturing them in all their glory, turkeys had been staples of European husbandry for 400 years. The New World native birds had first made landfall in Spain in 1511. These were turkeys domesticated by the Zapotecs a thousand years before, not the wild turkeys of New England, so they were much meatier and flightless."

Theo van Hoytema was a Dutch Art Nouveau lithographer and illustrator, born in The Hague in 1863, son of the Secretary-General of the Ministry of Finance. He briefly worked at his brothers' bank before pursuing art, specializing in animal drawings. His first paid work were illustrations in scientific volumes; plants and birds remained favored subjects. In 1892 he published How the Birds Got a King and in 1893 an illustrated edition of The Ugly Duckling. He gained fame for annual lithograph calendars from 1902 to 1918 featuring birds and other wildlife. Turkeys appear among his subjects; domesticated turkeys reached Europe by 1511, originating from Zapotec domestication and characterized as meatier and flightless.

Read at www.thehistoryblog.com