John Emms

Anonymous sale, London, Sotheby's, 14 June 1989, lot 104;

Where acquired by the present owner.

John Emms was born in Norfolk and initially lived in London but in the mid-1860s he moved to the village of Lyndhurst in Hampshire to assist Frederic, Lord Leighton in the painting of the Ten Virgins fresco at the parish church. It was living in the Hampshire countryside that exposed Emms to the hunting fraternity that was to shape the course of his career. He soon abandoned his early, highly finished academic technique for the expressive, painterly style of his energetic fox-hunting scenes and his "portraits" of purebred hounds. In 1880 he married Fanny Primmer, the daughter of a Lyndhurst official, and although they initially moved to London, in 1886 the couple settled back in Fanny’s hometown, building an imposing house, The Firs. He became a keen sportsman and it was through hunting that he met several aristocratic families who became important patrons for him. He became best-known for his portrayals of hounds, many of which were painted in the kennels of the Duchess of Newcastle at Clumber Park in Nottinghamshire. He also often painted the New Forest Buckhounds and the size of the hounds in the present painting, suggest that they are Buckhounds. The nobility of these creatures is accentuated by the intimate perspective he often adopted, inviting the viewer into the picture space in which the hounds are seen at close quarters, alert and characterful. Few artists describe the colouring of canine's coats better than Emms; he employs a warm palette of browns and yellow-whites to capture the folds of soft fur and drooping muzzles. The overlapping placement of the hounds suggests the familial relationship of the pack at rest after a long day's hunt. One is still on the scent of quarry in the background but the others are at repose.