A Staghunt (A Stag being driven through a Stag Pond at Lyme Park in Midsummer)
British (English) School
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1700 - 1799
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
876 x 1460 mm (34 1/2 x 57 1/2 in)
Place of origin
England
Order this imageCollection
Lyme, Cheshire
NT 500003
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, A Stag Hunt (after Jan Wyck), English School, 18th century. Hunting scene set in Lyme Park with several men on horseback and on foot in frock-coats and tricorn hats, with a pack of hounds pursuing a stag which swims across a pond. Two of the men on horseback have crops, one other horseman has a staff and another a hunting horn. To the left a woman and boy stand before trees, to the right in the foreground a fallen and decaying tree, behind the three horses, three haystacks, across the left, three men on horseback approach and beyond them a panaramic landscape with two towns on the horizon. A blue cloudy sky. The view is believed to represent Lyme Park, looking down on to the Cheshire Plain and Stockport, the three 'haystacks' supposedly representing the Bowstones on the perimeter of the park. It appears to show the curious Lyme custom whereby stags were driven through the Stag Pond (no longer existing) at mid-summer. The Legh's passion for hunting red deer is described in Walter Scott's 'Peveril of the Peak'. ,
Provenance
Original to the house.
Makers and roles
British (English) School, artist after Jan Wyck (Haarlem 1645 - Mortlake 1700), artist