Dead Pheasant / Wood Pecker of the Cape of Good Hope

One side of this sheet features a watercolour of a dead pheasant. The other side features a watercolour of a woodpecker, possibly a cardinal woodpecker, which is inscribed ‘Wood Pecker of the Cape of Good Hope’. These drawings are the work of naval officer Aiskew Paffard Hollis (1764–1844). The woodpecker drawing was probably made between 1796 and 1798, when Hollis was serving at the Cape of Good Hope, initially in the ‘Chichester’ and later in the ‘Tremendous’. For other examples of his work, see PAH4885 and ZBB0352–84.