Foxhunting- Encouraging Hounds

Hunting, and the horse that does it

The title places this in the field with the hounds, at the point where they are being urged on. Hunting pictures are their own category with their own conventions, and the animal's function in them is neither competitive nor ceremonial: it is transport across country at speed, over ground chosen by the quarry rather than by anyone riding. That is a different job from racing on a made course, and the pictures look different because of it.

What the record holds

The catalogue gives 1839 as the date of creation and the Yale Centre for British Art in New Haven, Connecticut, as the location. No dimensions are recorded for this work. Romanticism is the style term and British the nationality attached to the painter. The categories are Animal Art and Animal Art > Horse, and the measured colour family of the image is yellow.

A title that implies a set

The construction of the title, with a subject heading and then a specific incident after a dash, is the form used for sporting prints issued in series. This register holds other entries built the same way and dated the same year, which is consistent with a group of subjects made to be seen together rather than a single independent picture.