Ellen Shuttleworth, Fallow Deer – Original early 19th-century graphite drawing

Ellen Shuttleworth Fallow Deer

Prix ordinaire: €55,95

Prix soldé: €55,95
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An original early 19th-century graphite drawing, Ellen Shuttleworth, Fallow Deer.

This detailed graphite drawing is a fine portrait of a fallow deer—a common species of deer native to Europe. The deer is ennobled by its stance in the foreground, monumental against the diminutive gate and building in the distance.

On card laid down on backing paper.

Horses, Hounds & Game: Fine Early 19th-century Drawings

This picture is one of a particularly fine collection of similar early 19th-century animal subjects that we have for sale by various hands, including William Gunton and B. Fenning. The works feature horses, hounds, deer and game birds, and tell of early 19th-century rural British sporting life. The focus of these pictures is very much the animals depicted—a focus enhanced by the contrasting use of graphite and watercolour in some of the works. But in the depiction of these animals, the human activities in the 19th-century that they were associated with are never far away. By association, these pictures are also about riding, hunting, shooting and coaching.

Sporting and animal art became increasingly popular in the 19th century. The English artist Ben Marshall (1768–1835) claimed ‘I have discovered many a man who thinks 10 guineas too much for painting his wife will pay 50 guineas for painting his horse’. But sporting art was also more than this, capturing more profoundly the relationship between man and the natural world, and engaging with developing scientific and popular interests in natural history and zoology.