Catalogue entry
[from] THE BELVOIR HUNT: a set of four c.1830–40 [T02352-T02355]
T02354 3. FULL CRY
Inscribed ‘H Alken’: (1) and (4) lower left; (2) and (3) lower right
Oil on canvas, each 17 3/8 × 25 1/2 (44 × 64.5)
Presented by Mr Paul Mellon KBE through the British Sporting Art Trust 1979
Prov: ...; Arthur Ackermann & Son Ltd., from whom purchased by Paul Mellon 1964.
Exh: British Sporting Paintings, Fermoy Art Gallery, King's Lynn 1979 (24–27).
Lit: Egerton, 1978, p.253, no.275, 1–4.
The Belvoir is one of the oldest and most celebrated hunts; it dates from 1750 and became a foxhound pack in 1762. The kennels throughout the Hunt's history have been at Belvoir Castle. Its country lies in Leicestershire and Lincolnshire, adjoining that of the Quorn and the Cottesmore at Melton Mowbray. Alken's scenes catch something of the qualities, half-dandy, half-daredevil, deliberately cultivated by Meltonian sportsmen; in ‘The Meet’, one rider nonchalantly smokes a cheroot as he waits, and in ‘The Death’ one accepts a cigar from another's silver case, but (2) and (3) show most of the field taking fences and ditches with considerable verve and aplomb… (read more)
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