HOWITT, Samuel (British, 1765-1822).
M. Minx (Mink, male).
Watercolor on paper.
Signed lower right: ‘Howitt’.
Inscribed ‘M. Minx’ lower center.
An additional, indecipherable inscription may read ‘Major Smith ad vite’ (?).
7 3/8" x 4 3/8" sheet, 10" x 7 3/4" mount.

The British curiosity with some North American mammals centered on fur. The Hudson's Bay Company sold mink pelts at the London fur auctions throughout this period, classed among the "fancy furs" along with marten, ermine, and fox, and worked up by furriers into the trim, linings, cuffs, and muffs of women's outdoor clothing rather than into hats (which still wanted beaver felt).

Several of the North American animal watercolors by Samuel Howitt from Walter Fawkes's collection at Farnley Hall are now in the Rothschild Library at the Natural History Museum, Tring, bearing inscriptions naming a "Major" as the apparent source. Howitt was working from skins or stuffed specimens collected in North America (Missouri, Albany, New York), and on several sheets, he noted "Major [surname] / [American place]" as the source. The surname is partly abraded or trimmed on every example we have been able to find a transcription of, and is often described as having an inscription as "Major __" or "Major _V." The inscriptions clearly name a Major associated with the American Northeast and the Missouri country, but the surname itself doesn't survive.

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