Charles Hunt

The Belle of the Hunt

42.5 x 33 inches

A large scale and vivid evocation of romance halfway through the hunt. A lady rides side-saddle alongside a handsome young man who raises his top hat and kisses her as they gallop across country. In what is a very precarious situation he embraces her waist with his left hand whilst holding his hat aloft with his right. The horses appear to mimic the affection of their owners as they nuzzle their heads together. There is something comic, verging on the absurd, at the daring nature of the young lovers' escapade. The horses' hind and fore legs are so elongated they almost appear to be lying down and there is a sense of impending catastrophe as they approach a brook. In the background to the left we can see the rest of the hunt going to cover whilst over on the top right there is a carriage and four making its way up hill. It is unusual to find such a wonderful celebration of female equestrianism.

Charles Hunt was one of the most prolific and successful aquatint engravers working in London during the early to mid-nineteenth century. Along with his brother George, he engraved after all the most famous sporting artists of his day and produced some of the most accomplished work of the period. This wonderful hunting scene is typical of his work and shows the heights to which aquatint engraving had reached by the early Victorian period.