This natural history drawing from the 'Paper Museum' of Cassiano dal Pozzo (1588–1657) shows a leucistic corn bunting (Emberizidae) and is annotated ‘corn bunting almost all white’. Despite water damage, which has rendered the detail only partially visible, the variegated plumage pattern can still be seen on the upper chest and lower nape, and the patches of white plumage interspersed with dark on the head, neck, back, feathers and tail are typical of a semi-albino example. The eye is dark, the bill black and pink, and the legs, though damaged and possibly unfinished, are pinkish-yellow.

The sheet belongs to a group of bird drawings commissioned by Cassiano from the artist Vincenzo Leonardi to illustrate a 1622 treatise on birds by Giovanni Pietro Olina titled L'Uccelliera, ovvero discorso della natura e proprietà di diversi uccelli ('The Aviary, or Discourse on the Nature and Characteristics of Diverse Birds') – although there are many more drawings than were actually used in the book.

Olina’s description of the corn bunting (see RCIN 927654) does not mention white variations. The particular interest collectors had in colour variations and abnormalities in birds included albino and leucistic specimens, as well as those undergoing seasonal plumage changes (see p. 57 and 118, 174). Coloration anomalies, mainly due to leucism, are not uncommon in the bunting genus, of which examples of partial or fully albino specimens are recorded (Arrigoni degli Oddi 1929, p. 130).

Annotations: Strillozzo quasi tutto bianco

Natural History of Birds album (RCIN 970381), fol. 62; laid down on late eighteenth-century mount sheet (‘type G’ mount). Drawing sheet silhouetted around tail; trimmed at top, bottom and left; water damage.

Text adapted from Birds, Other Animals and Natural Curiosities, Parts B.IV–V of The Paper Museum of Cassiano dal Pozzo: A Catalogue Raisonné, 2 vols, London 2017, cat. 57 [Henrietta McBurney with Carlo Violani].