Drawing by Samuel Howitt used as illustration in a book of fables published in 1818. The rooster and dog are traveling together. The fox tries to trick the rooster into descending, but the rooster leads the unwitting fox to the dog instead.The National Sporting Library and Museum in Middleburg, Virginia has mounted an art exhibit—Scraps: British Sporting Drawings from the Paul Mellon Collection. The exhibit will run from April 6 to June 30, 2012 and will provide a worthwhile destination for those in town for the Virginia Foxhound Show over the Memorial Day weekend in May.
The title, Scraps, is inspired by a series of Henry Alken drawings by the same name, published in the early 1800s, in a loose, informal, and sometimes humorous vein. The exhibit includes original examples of these works by Alken and other sporting artists of the period: Samuel Howitt, Edwin Landseer, Henry Heath, Thomas Rowlandson, Thomas Miles Richardson, and others.
Study of four foxhounds by Francis Grant, ca 1871. This self-taught artist became president of the Royal Academy.The exhibit is organized into three categories: Animal and Nature, Sporting Observations, and Coaching and Country Life. In the first two are seen brilliant examples of a rebellious movement among artists of the period who were experimentally breaking out of the studio and away from traditional technique associated with formal commissions, preferring to draw and paint directly from real life and nature.
Sporting Observations includes works depicting the dramatic as well as the satiric aspects of sport and the mishaps that occasionally befall sporting participants and spectators. Many of these paintings and drawings served as models for the publication of sporting prints that became so popular and have remained so ever since.
The third category celebrates the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century coaching era that transformed the British countryside and so influenced the history and literature of the nation. All works are on loan from the Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond.
Posted April 29, 2012
Watercolor by Henry Alken. A surprise snowstorm has foiled the this man’s hunting plans and his cow appears equally unhappy.