Description
A group of portly gentlemen at a hunting lodge lethargically prepare to go out on a hunt. The dogs are bounding around the room, raring to go, but the gentlemen have apparently had a bit much to eat and seem more ready to take a nap. This print was issued posthumously.
Bunbury was a socially well-connected artist from the upper classes of British society, friends with prominent men like the painter Joshua Reynolds. After a Grand Tour in the late 1760s, he began a military career, and in 1787 he was appointed equerry to Frederick, Duke of York, and became a familiar and popular figure at court. He specialized in subjects from his experiences as a gentleman and courtier that also appealed to his patrons, including Cambridge, the Grand Tour, military life and horsemanship. Although the writer Horace Walpole compared him favorably to William Hogarth, when Bunbury ventured into satire, it tended toward the gentle humor of this print, rather than the scathing commentary of some of his 18th Century contemporaries like Hogarth.
Condition: Generally very good with the usual light toning, wear, soiling, foxing, soft creases. Paper watermarked 1815.
Reference:
“Henry William Bunbury.” The Grove Dictionary of Art. Online at Artnet.com.http://www.artnet.com/library/01/0122/T012262.asp
