Bird-nesting, Ludlow
- Artist: Philip Wilson Steer
- Date: 1898
- Medium: Oil paint on canvas
- Dimensions: support: 571 x 927 mm
- Museum: Tate Britain
- Collection record: Tate Britain website
Listen to the free audio guide
About this artwork
This is the “Bird‑nesting, Ludlow” by Philip Wilson Steer. Painted in 1898, the oil on canvas captures a bright, sloping hill in the English Midlands, where a group of children in casual dress sneak around to steal bird eggs. Steer had just left his earlier Impressionist phase—those sunny seaside scenes of children—and was turning to a more traditional British landscape influenced by Turner’s dramatic light and Constable’s love of woods and hilltops. In this work the sun pours in from the side, creating sharp shadows that give the scene an almost cinematic quality. The children’s playful gestures, the craggy hill, and the hint of cloud overhead all work together to convey a fleeting moment of country life. The painting was presented to the public in 1937 by the Trustees of the Chantrey Bequest, and it has since been a favorite point of interest for those looking to see how Steer captured the beauty he saw in places like Ludlow, a town he returned to multiple times for inspiration.
See it in person
Bird-nesting, Ludlow is in the collection of Tate Britain on Millbank, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
