THE SNOWY OWL

Bubo scandiacus
Switzerland, 1990
61 × 32 × 22 cm

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Provenance:
Private collection, Switzerland

The snowy owl (Bubo scandiacus), also known as the Polar owl, the White owl or the Arctic owl, is a large white owl and certainly one of the most unmistakable owls in the world. No other species attains their signature white colouring, stippled sparsely with black-brown areas, which renders their bright yellow eyes all the more detectable, nor possesses their extremely long feathering and copious white plumage.

Throughout history, in mythology and across many cultures, people have regarded owls with fascination and awe. Owls have been both feared and venerated, despised and admired, considered wise and foolish, and associated with witchcraft and medicine, the weather, birth and death.
During the eighteenth century the zoological aspects of owls were detailed through close observation, reducing the mystery surrounding these birds. With superstitions dying out in the twentieth century – in the West at least – the owl has returned to its position as a symbol of wisdom. In the prized novel Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (1997), the wizard Harry is assigned a female snowy owl named Hedwig (a Scandinavian name meaning female warrior) as his animal companion.

The snowy owl presented here was prepared by a Swiss taxidermist after its natural demise in a zoo.