Art & Literature
Ellen Emmet Rand Painted Presidents and Foxhunters
Portrait of Ellen Emmet c. 1907 by Mary Foote (American, 1847-1938).Ellen Gertrude Emmet Rand (1876-1941) was among the first females in the United States to succeed as a professional portrait artist. She was a contemporary of Mary Foote who painted this portrait of Rand at her easel.
A superb portraitist, Rand is perhaps best known for painting Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s official presidential portrait in 1934, one of hundreds of portraits of politicians, captains of industry, socialites, artists, and scholars completed over her forty-year career...as well as foxhunters of note! You see, she was a foxhunter, too.
Taking a Toss
Another short story from the author’s Echoes of the Hunting Horn. Every foxhunter with warm blood will relate to the jumble of self-accusations tumbling through the author’s mind after getting tossed.
Hounds are running hard for the past twenty minutes. Not a semblance of a check. The pace is terrific over a magnificent line of country with big sensible banks. One fairly-wide river, the honest variety, no slime or sponge-like edges; not a trace of wire anywhere. Horse never put a foot wrong since the Gone-Away . . . blowing somewhat now, though; last big wall took some negotiating. It seems to have thinned the already select field to a mere dozen. Thank Heaven for the down-hill gallop after that last stiff hill; horse's wind feels easier now. Out on the left, riders are heading for a gate. It seems a long way off, and this wall does not seem such a terrifying rasper. Come on, old Challenger, the wall will save time. Steady now, not so fast. Slower still, slower I say, Hup! Over! God bless us, oblivion.
Mr. Nappie’s Grey
This story, extracted from Trollope's The Eustace Diamonds, is populated by just about every character you ever met in the hunting field.
Anthony Trollope by Spy in Vanity FairMounted on a bright-skinned, lively steed, with her cousin on one side and Lord George de Bruce Carruthers on the other, with all the hunting world of her own county around her, and a fox just found in Craigattan Gorse, what could the heart of woman desire more? This was to live. There was, however, just enough of fear to make the blood run quickly to her heart. "We'll be away at once now," said Lord George with utmost earnestness; "follow me close, but not too close. Just check your horse as he comes to his fences, and, if you can, see me over before you go at them. Now then, down the hill;—there's a gate at the corner, and a bridge over the water. We couldn't be better. By George! there they are,—all together. If they don't pull him down in the first two minutes, we shall have a run."
Lizzie understood most of it,—more at least than would nine out of ten young women who had never ridden a hunt before. She was to go wherever Lord George led her, and she was not to ride upon his heels. So much at least she understood,—and so much she was resolved to do. She would ride as fast as Lucinda Roanoke. That was her prevailing idea.
Fourth Annual Sporting Art Auction at Keeneland
Michael Lyne (British 1912-1989), DRAWN BLANK, Watercolor, gouache, 17 x 23-3/4, $7,000 to $10,000
For American art lovers, the upcoming Sporting Art Auction on Monday, November 21, 2016, 4:00 pm, at the Keeneland Sales Pavilion should be of special interest. Several lots by contemporary American and European artists feature North American hunts. Two in particular of the Old Dominion Hounds (VA) were painted by the late Peter Biegel (British) in the latter part of the twentieth century. Click to view the catalog.
This annual auction combines the expertise of two renowned institutions: Keeneland, the world’s largest Thoroughbred auction house and Gregg Ladd's premier Gross Gate Gallery, both located in Lexington, Kentucky. The 2016 collection features 175 high-quality lots of paintings and sculpture from renowned masters as well as talented new artists. In the foxhunting genre alone, there are works by Peter Biegel, Julie Chapman, Richard DuPont, John Emms, Dede Gold, Harry Hall, Juli Kirk, J.B. Lalanne, Michael Lyne, LeRoy Nieman, Andre Pater, Belinda Sillars, Susie Whitcombe, and George Wright.
Munnings Portrait Expected to Fetch a Half-Million
Portrait of Harry La Montagne on a Grey, by Sir Alfred James Munnings
A 1920s work by famed equestrian artist Sir Alfred Munnings is estimated to fetch between $300,000 and $500,000 when it goes under the hammer at Christie’s in New York later this month. Titled, Portrait of Harry La Montagne on a Grey, the painting will be auctioned on October 26 during Christie’s sale of 19th Century European Art.
Munnings stayed with Harry and Beatrice La Montagne at their house, the Villa Regina in Pau, southern France, during the autumn of 1923 to paint Mrs. La Montagne’s portrait on horseback. This followed a recommendation to Munnings from Baron Robert Rothschild who described her as “a good-looking, smart, American woman. The well-turned-out lady was supplied by her devoted husband with superb horses.” (Sir A.J. Munnings, The Second Burst, Bungay, 1951, p. 100).
Beth Carlson’s Fox Paintings
Look no further than Foxhunting Life’s Bookstore for a collection of Beth Carlson’s fox paintings in coffee-table book format. Each full-page painting—many in private collections and reproduced in full color on substantial, coated paper stock—is accompanied by a short essay by the artist explaining its history.
Reviewing Fox Tales for us last February, Martha Woodham wrote, "It’s not often that art lovers get to spend time with an artist to learn about the background of a painting, to discover insights into the thinking behind the work. But a lovely new book by Beth Carlson is like a walk through a gallery of her paintings with the Maine artist as your guide.”
Esmé
Writing under the pen name, Saki, British writer Hector Hugh Munro (1870–1916) was considered a master of the short story. Influenced by Oscar Wilde, Lewis Carroll, and Rudyard Kipling, Munro himself influenced A. A. Milne, Noël Coward and P. G. Wodehouse.
His witty and sometimes macabre stories satirize Edwardian society and culture. Here’s one that falls into the macabre, the Baroness lacking that measure of sensitivity with which many of the Edwardian British upper class were comfortably unencumbered.
"All hunting stories are the same," said Clovis; "just as all turf stories are the same, and all..."
"My hunting story isn't a bit like any you've ever heard," said the Baroness. "It happened quite a while ago, when I was about twenty-three. I wasn't living apart from my husband then; you see, neither of us could afford to make the other a separate allowance. In spite of everything that proverbs may say, poverty keeps together more homes than it breaks up. But we always hunted with different packs. All this has nothing to do with the story."
Cubhunting Starts
Illustration by Lionel Edwards The trees and the hedges both touched with a glory, The bracken all turning to gold,And grass in the mornings bejewelled and hoary, Are sights that are good to behold. September is with us, and soon we’ll be hearing, As mists roll away from the dawn,A note that is bandied from covert to clearing, The magical note of the horn. And woods that have slumbered in peace and in quiet, The whole of the long summer through,Will suddenly waken to clamour and riot, Now cubbing is starting anew. Posted August 19, 2016 From Somewhere in England by Captain Edric G. Roberts, illustrated by Lionel Edwards... This content is for subscribers only.Join NowAlready a member? Log in here
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Staying at the Ringwell Kennels
Sassoon was excited to be hunting in the Ringwell country this season. On his very first hunt as a youngster with the local pack, he had spied, admired, and envied another young boy, Denis Milden, who had appeared to be so experienced. That boy was now the new Master and huntsman of the Ringwell. It was an overnight trip to that country for Sassoon, and he had been invited to stay at the kennels with his old acquaintance, the Master, as often as he wished. What follows is extracted and condensed from Memoirs of a Foxhunting Man, Part Seven, Chapter III. Click for our earlier sampling from Part Seven, Chapter II.
Staying at the Kennels was the most significant occasion my little world could offer me, and in order that he might share my sublunary advancement I took Cockbird with me. In reply to my reserved little note I received a cheery letter from Denis: he would be delighted to see me and gave detailed instructions about my bag being called for and taken out to the Kennels from Downfield.
Memoirs of a Foxhunting Man
Extracted and condensed from Memoirs of a Foxhunting Man, Part Seven, Chapter II.
British author and war poet, Siegfried Sassoon
October arrived; the drought broke with forty-eight hours’ quiet rain; and Dixon had a field day with the new clipping machine, of which it is enough to say that the stable-boy turned a handle and Dixon did the rest. He had decided to clip the horses’ legs this season; the Ringwell was a bad country for thorns, and these were, naturally less likely to be overlooked on clipped legs, which also were more sightly and dried quicker than hairy ones.
Resplendent in my new red coat, and almost too much admired by Aunt Evelyn and Miriam, I went off to the opening meet by the early train from Dumbridge to Downfield. Half an hour’s ride took me to the kennels, where I joined an impressive concourse, mounted, in vehicles, and on foot. The sun shone after a white frost, and everyone was anxious to have a look at the new Master. My new coat was only a single spot of color among many, but I felt a tremendous swell all the same. Familiar faces greeted me, and when we trotted away to draw Pacey’s Plantation, old Mr. Dearborn bumped along beside me in his faded red coat and blue and white spotted birds-eye cravat. “This horse ought to have one of you young chaps on his back!” he exclaimed. “Jumps too big for an old buffer like me; never known him to put a foot wrong, clever as a cat—(hold up, will you!)...his clever hunter having tripped badly on some stones.
