- 173
Flemish School, early 18th Century
bidding is closed
Description
- The world reversed
- oil on canvas
Provenance
Thomas Cannings, Hampton Court, Leominster, Herefordshire, remaining in the house until sold on the premises by Phillips in 1972, when the property of Viscount Hereford;
Anonymous sale, London, Christie's, 9 December 1988, lot 80 (sold as one of a pair, the pendant A fête champêtre of foxes and swans, as Circle of Jan van Kessel I), when bought by the present owner.
Anonymous sale, London, Christie's, 9 December 1988, lot 80 (sold as one of a pair, the pendant A fête champêtre of foxes and swans, as Circle of Jan van Kessel I), when bought by the present owner.
Catalogue Note
One of the earliest popular examples of animals taking revenge of hunters and their dogs is an anonymous engraving published by Theodoor Galle in Antwerp in 1604, entitled Wild animals taking their revenge on hunters and hunting-dogs. The most famous 17th-century treatment of the subject is Paulus Potter's The Life of the Hunter, now in the Hermitage, Saint Petersburg (one scene is by Cornelis Poelenburch).
The earliest depiction of hares alone turning the tables on man the hunter is in a ceiling fresco in the fortified villa of Bucovice in Moravia, in a chamber known as the zajeci sal (Hall of Hares). Dating from 1637 or a little before, this fresco perhaps reflected the topsy-turvy world of Central Europe during the Thirty Years War. It may be that it had a source in a print also available to later painters of this subject, since like the present picture, the much earlier fresco also includes a huntsman being tossed in a blanket - a punishment much beloved of latter-day English schoolboys.
There are several versions of the present work, also known as The Hare's Revenge, one of which is in Newhouse, Wiltshire, and depicts the King and Queen as hares. It has had a number of attributions, for example to Van Kessel and Ridinger, and datings from 1640 to after 1715. Another, with Arthur Ackermann & Sons in 1926 and thought to have come from Stowe (later at Tetton House, Taunton), was also ascribed to J.E. Ridinger. It was the subject of correspondence in Country Life, 10th July 1926, the correspondent attributing to Ridinger a rooted antipathy to hare hunting and coursing. The purpose of the present work and those like it, is surely to amuse the viewer, rather than to admonish those who enjoy the sport of hunting. It is comic, mordant even, but it surely does not moralize.
The earliest depiction of hares alone turning the tables on man the hunter is in a ceiling fresco in the fortified villa of Bucovice in Moravia, in a chamber known as the zajeci sal (Hall of Hares). Dating from 1637 or a little before, this fresco perhaps reflected the topsy-turvy world of Central Europe during the Thirty Years War. It may be that it had a source in a print also available to later painters of this subject, since like the present picture, the much earlier fresco also includes a huntsman being tossed in a blanket - a punishment much beloved of latter-day English schoolboys.
There are several versions of the present work, also known as The Hare's Revenge, one of which is in Newhouse, Wiltshire, and depicts the King and Queen as hares. It has had a number of attributions, for example to Van Kessel and Ridinger, and datings from 1640 to after 1715. Another, with Arthur Ackermann & Sons in 1926 and thought to have come from Stowe (later at Tetton House, Taunton), was also ascribed to J.E. Ridinger. It was the subject of correspondence in Country Life, 10th July 1926, the correspondent attributing to Ridinger a rooted antipathy to hare hunting and coursing. The purpose of the present work and those like it, is surely to amuse the viewer, rather than to admonish those who enjoy the sport of hunting. It is comic, mordant even, but it surely does not moralize.