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A hunting party with eight men mostly on horseback and nine dogs gather around a fox being attacked by two dogs in this horizontal landscape painting. The men wear or hold black caps and have jackets in cardinal red or parchment white, and one is in teal blue. The horses are silvery white, chestnut brown, or black. At the center, near the fox, one man dismounts, and another stands to our right of the group. The hounds are white with black and tan spots, and they rush toward the rust-brown fox. The hunters and dogs form a loose line across a grassy area, which is backed with a steeply rising but low hill, topped by trees with feathery canopies. The grass and leaves are painted in tones of sage green and harvest gold. A smudge of brick red in a crevice of the hill could be a person watching from the shadows. One rider on a white horse gives chase in the distance to our left, and the land dips down and back to row of houses along the crest of a rolling hill. Thin screens of white and pale gray clouds float across a pale blue sky above.

George Morland

The Death of the Fox, c. 1791/1794

Not on View

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 142.2 x 188 cm (56 x 74 in.)

framed: 185.4 x 229.9 x 10.8 cm (73 x 90 1/2 x 4 1/4 in.)

Credit Line

Widener Collection

Accession Number

1942.9.43

Artists / Makers

George Morland (artist) British, 1763 - 1804

Image Use

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Inscription

lower right: G Morland Pinxt.

Provenance

John Page-Darby, by 1882.[1] (Sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 18 July 1892, no. 89); (Vokins); sold to (Wallis & Son, London); purchased 1893 by P.A.B. Widener, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania; inheritance from the Estate of P.A.B. Widener by gift through power of appointment of Joseph E. Widener, Elkins Park; gift 1942 to NGA.

[1] When he lent it to Works by the Old Masters, and by Deceased Masters of the British School, Winter Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1882, no. 267.

Associated Names

Christie, Manson & Woods, Ltd.
Page-Darby, John
Vokins, Mr.
Wallis & Son, Henry
Widener, Joseph E.
Widener, Peter Arrell Brown

Exhibition History

1882: Works by the Old Masters, and by Deceased Masters of the British School. Winter Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1882, no. 267.

Technical Summary

The medium-heavy canvas is twill woven; it has been lined. The ground is white, thickly and smoothly applied. The painting is executed richly and fluidly, progressing from thin to thicker layers, small details often being painted with some texture; there are glazes in passages such as the red coats of the huntsmen and the distant hills. There are pentimenti in the hind legs of the dog in the foreground and the two dogs on the left, which were originally outstretched, and in the right arm of the whipper-in, originally held downward. The paint surface is solvent abraded and the impasto has been flattened during lining. The traction crackle in the richer areas suggests the presence of bitumen. There is extensive retouching over flake losses in the sky at upper left. The residual older varnish is very darkened, and the more recent pigmented natural resin varnish has discolored slightly.

Bibliography

1915: Roberts, William. Pictures in the Collection of P.A.B. Widener at Lynnewood Hall, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania: British and Modern French Schools, Philadelphia, 1915: unpaginated, repro.

1922: Shaw Sparrow, Walter. British Sporting Artists from Barlow to Herring. London and New York, 1922: 161-162.

1923: Paintings in the Collection of Joseph Widener at Lynnewood Hall. Intro. by Wilhelm R. Valentiner. Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, 1923: unpaginated, repro.

1931: Paintings in the Collection of Joseph Widener at Lynnewood Hall. Intro. by Wilhelm R. Valentiner. Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, 1931: 188, repro.

1948: Paintings and Sculpture from the Widener Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1948 (reprinted 1959): 92, repro., as The End of the Hunt.

1960: Cooke, Hereward Lester. British Painting in the National Gallery of Art. Washington, D.C., 1960 (Booklet Number Eight in Ten Schools of Painting in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.): 26, color repro., as The End of the Hunt.

1963: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 320, repro., as The End of the Hunt.

1965: Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 94, as The End of the Hunt.

1968: National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 83, repro., as The End of the Hunt.

1975: European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 248, repro., as The End of the Hunt.

1975: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1975: no. 596, color repro.

1982: Works by the Old Masters, and by Deceased Masters of the British School. Exh. cat. Winter Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1882: no. 267.

1984: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 408, no. 581, color repro., as The End of the Hunt.

1985: European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 288, repro.

1992: Hayes, John. British Paintings of the Sixteenth through Nineteenth Centuries. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1992: 177-179, color repro. 179.