The Tiger Hunt
Velay
Category
Architecture / Features & Decoration
Date
1807 (after)
Materials
Wallpaper and giltwood
Place of origin
Paris
Collection
Attingham Park, Shropshire
NT 608084
Summary
Seventeen vertical drops of hand blocked wallpaper, previously attributed to Joseph Dufour but now considered to be probably by Velay of Paris. Mounted on canvas. Hand block printed with scene of dancing houri surrounded by musicians and watched by Western visitors. Mughal palace to the right with Hindu palace on the left. A scene of a tiger hunt. Indian huntsmen mounted on horses and elephants, armed with spears, axes, bows and arrows. In landscape setting with palm trees. The scenes, some of which are said to have been taken from William and Thomas Daniell’s “Oriental Scenery” published in London in 1795, depict the right bank of the River Ganges, with tigers being hunted on horseback and mounted on an elephant. Two temples are taken from Daniell’s engraving “Hindoo Temples at Bishabund” (op. cit. pl. II). The “Tiger Hunt”, variously known as “Paysage Indien”, “Chasse au tigre”, “Chasse indienne” or “Vues de l’Inde”, was attributed by Nancy McClelland to Dufour and dated to 1815 (N. McClelland, Historic Wall Papers, Philadelphia and London, 924, p. 360). She illustrates a set in the Putnam-Hanson House, 94 Boston Street, Salem, Massachusetts. However, the set has been attributed to the Velay Manufactory (see O. Nouvel-Kammerer, Papiers Peints Panoramiques, Exhibition Catalogue, Musée des Arts Décoratifs. Paris, 1998, pp. 306-307). The Velay Manufactory was a contemporary of Dufour and active in Paris after 1807. Other examples of this set are in a private collection in Puy-de-Dôme, Rhone, Haute-Saône, France, in Belgium and Jönköping, Sweden.
Provenance
Attingham collection; bequeathed to the National Trust with the estate, house and contents of Attingham by Thomas Henry Noel-Hill, 8th Baron Berwick (1877-1947) on 15th May 1953. Acquired by the 8th Lord Berwick when he was Attaché at the Paris Embassy, c.1903.
Makers and roles
Velay , manufacturer