Isabella Hunter Rabbits in Undergrowth, Scottish Borders

Hunter Family: Horses at Anton's Hill, Berwickshire, Scottish Borders

This painting forms part of a charming equestrian themed collection of works by the Hunter family of Anton's Hill near Leitholm in rural Berwickshire in the Scottish Borders. The pictures document Anton's Hill House and its stables in the 1870s, and feature an array of horse subjects—working Clydesdale cart horses, Fell and Dales ponies, playful horses with children and imaginative rider subjects. They tell a story of the importance of horses in Berwickshire and the Scottish borders, both due to the open and rugged rural landscape and also the historical threat of invasion in this border area. 'Common ridings' are a tradition in Border towns to this day, as a way of celebrating and commemorating the equestrian role in defence of the region.

The Hunter family of Anton's Hill had deep ancestral roots in the Scottish Borders, Berwickshire, Northumberland and Co Durham areas. Pictures in the collection are mainly by two of the Hunter sisters, Isabella and Lucy, whose father, Matthew Dysart Hunter (1803–1869), inherited Anton's Hill from his mother, Jean Dickson (d.1845). Anton's Hill House was designed for the Dicksons in the 1830s by the leading Scottish architect William Burns. Matthew's father was General Sir Martin Hunter GCH GCMG (1757–1846), of Medomsley, Co. Durham, who saw action in the American Revolutionary War before serving in India. On his return he served as Governor of Stirling Castle from 1832 to his death. Matthew Dysart Hunter spent time as a merchant in Sydney, Australia, before himself settling at Anton's Hill with his family.

The watercolours in the collection have much charm not only as historical record of a region and lifestyle, but also for their imaginative quality: often the scenes are accompanied by a literary quotation—from Thomas Grey, Tennyson, Byron, Goldsmith and Goethe—that brings into focus the wider 19th-century Romantic cultural context in which the paintings were produced.