Oil Painting, 'Landscape with Hawking Party', circle of Philips Wouverman, late 17th century

A hawking party including men and women on horseback in a landscape with hounds

Bequeathed by John M. Parsons

Bequeathed by John M. Parsons, 1870
John Meeson Parsons (1798-1870), art collector, was born in Newport, Shropshire. He later settled in London, and became a member of the stock exchange. His interest in railways led to his election as an associate of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1839, and he was director or chairman of two railway companies between 1843 and 1848. Much of his time however was spent collecting pictures and works of art. In his will he offered his collection of mostly German and Dutch schools to the National Gallery (which selected only three works) and to the Department of Science and Art at South Kensington, later the Victoria and Albert Museum. The South Kensington Museum acquired ninety-two oil paintings and forty-seven watercolours. A number of engravings were also left to the British Museum.

Historical significance: Philips Wouwerman, (1619-1668) was undoubtedly the most accomplished and successful 17th-century Dutch painter of horses, which he included in his many pictures depicting battle scenes, hunting scenes, army camps, smithies and stables. He also painted silvery-grey landscapes, genre scenes and a few, original religious and mythological pictures. He was exceptionally productive: although he lived to be only 48 years old, more than 1000 paintings bear his name. During the second half of the 1650s Wouwerman produced many fanciful hunting scenes, often with a vaguely Italian setting and brighter local colours; these were particularly sought after in the 18th century and the early 19th, especially in France. Wouwerman had several pupils, including Nicolaes Ficke, Jacob Warnars and the Swedish artist Koort Witholt, and Antony de Haen. Wouwerman also had many followers. All the important collections created during the 18th and the early 19th centuries, including those that form the nucleus of the museums in St Petersburg, Dresden and The Hague, contain a large number of his works. Between 1737 and 1759 Jean Moyreau (1690–1762) published 89 engravings after paintings by Wouwerman. Although 542-1870 contains many of the artist’s favourite motifs and themes it cannot convincingly be attributed to the master. Wouwerman painted roughly 30 hawking party subjects over the course of his career and 542-1870 appears to be a pastiche of several elements, possibly taken from engravings after his work. Falconry or hawking is a sport which involves the use of trained raptors (birds of prey) to hunt or pursue game for humans. There are two traditional terms used to describe a person involved in falconry: a falconer flies a falcon; an austringer flies a hawk or an eagle. It is particularly close to his Landscape with Falconers ca. 1655 (St. Petersburg, The State Hermitage, inv. 833).

Genre paintings involving low class society, especially peasants, became increasingly popular in the first half of the 17th century in the Netherlands. They were associated with the health, liberty and pleasure found primarily in the countryside. Military scenes were also particularly popular in the Netherlands, following the recent episodes of war that marked the progressive independence of the Low Countries (Eighty Years' War 1568-1648), Philips Wouwerman painted generic skirmishes and ambushes (using northern settings, clothing and weapons) and he concentrated on genre scenes of crowded camp life. Tapestries also allowed this genre to develop and were now used as official military art and formed high-class mass production. In Rome, the Bamboccianti, i.e. Netherlandish followers of Pieter van Laer nicknamed Bamboccio, were particularly interested in this genre.

Originally catalogued as by Wouverman (1893), the painting is now considered a late 17th-century work by an artist in his circle.

A hawking party including men and women on horseback in a landscape with hounds. Philips Wouwerman, (1619-1668) was an accomplished and successful 17th-century Dutch painter of horses, which he included in his many pictures depicting battle scenes, hunting scenes, army camps, smithies and stables. Wouwerman had several pupils, including Nicolaes Ficke, Jacob Warnars and the Swedish artist Koort Witholt, and Antony de Haen. Between 1737 and 1759 Jean Moyreau (1690–1762) published 89 engravings after paintings by Wouwerman. Although 542-1870 contains many of the artist’s favourite motifs and themes it cannot convincingly be attributed to the master. Wouwerman painted roughly 30 hawking party subjects over the course of his career and 542-1870 appears to be a pastiche of several elements, possibly taken from engravings after his work. It is particularly close to his Landscape with Falconers ca. 1655 (St. Petersburg, The State Hermitage, inv. 833).

542-1870