Lot Essay
Executed circa 1879-1883.
Considered to be an important Bostonian trompe l'oeil painter of the 19th century, Alexander Pope began his career as a sculptor. The artist's wood carvings and paintings of game were well received by the public. One observer in 1909 stated: "He is perhaps the most intense of the still life and animal painters of the day...There is a sense of completeness and solidarity in the object, whether it is a bird, a dog or the wide-spreading antlers of a deer on the wall so that the visual effect...is something like the binocular effect of a double photograph or picture seen through a stereoscope" (Boston Sunday Globe, December 26, 1909, as quoted in D.F. Hoopes, Alexander Pope, Painter of 'Characteristic Pieces', Brooklyn Museum Annual 8, 1966-67, p. 137)
Pheasant and Game Bag After the Hunt possibly served as an inspiration to Pope's early masterwork, The Oak Door, now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Considered to be an important Bostonian trompe l'oeil painter of the 19th century, Alexander Pope began his career as a sculptor. The artist's wood carvings and paintings of game were well received by the public. One observer in 1909 stated: "He is perhaps the most intense of the still life and animal painters of the day...There is a sense of completeness and solidarity in the object, whether it is a bird, a dog or the wide-spreading antlers of a deer on the wall so that the visual effect...is something like the binocular effect of a double photograph or picture seen through a stereoscope" (Boston Sunday Globe, December 26, 1909, as quoted in D.F. Hoopes, Alexander Pope, Painter of 'Characteristic Pieces', Brooklyn Museum Annual 8, 1966-67, p. 137)
Pheasant and Game Bag After the Hunt possibly served as an inspiration to Pope's early masterwork, The Oak Door, now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.