Great auk egg II

(30 x 26 cm, watercolour on paper, acrylic frame) - SOLD As humans arrived with boats and hunger, the great auk’s (Pinguinus impennis) fearlessness became fatal. It was taken for meat, for oil, for feathers to fill pillows, and finally for curiosity: its eggs collected, its body stuffed and displayed under glass. By 1844, the last known pair was killed on a small Icelandic island, ending a lineage that had endured for ages. Today, the great auk survives only in these pointy, uniquely speckled eggs, in bones, skins, and drawings, a heavy absence where a living presence once stood. This extinct bird is a reminder of how easily wonder can vanish when it is treated as endless.