Lot Essay
An enthusiasm for hunting, fishing, and being in the great out-of-doors gripped the nation in the 1850s. Whether out of a mania for all things British, or nostalgia for the advancing frontier, the well-bred northeastern gentleman could ill afford to be without a gun, a dog, and pictures of both. Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait, with his British heritage, and his talent for painting the sporting life, was well-equipped to take advantage of the fashion of the day, and by the end of 1858 he was sufficiently well-established as a sporting painter to be lauded in the Cosmopolitan Art Journal:
Tait has come in from northern New York, where many weeks have been spent in a real hunter's life. His sketch-book is filled with wood and water life. May he live long enough to paint them all, and many more besides! His dogs and quail and grouse have become a kind of necessity to every well-ordered room.
His success in this realm was due in no small part to his association with the popular publishers Nathaniel Currier and James Ives. In 1857 Currier & Ives requested four large canvases of pointers and setters hunting woodcock, snipe, grouse and quail, to be published under the title American Field Sports. Working with renowned lithographer Louis Maurer as consultant, Tait produced "a set of pictures showing dogs, birds and setting of the finest possible quality", creating "the most symbolic illustrations of the sport obtainable."
The quality of the print making was equal to the appeal of the subjects, and the series was advertised in the outdoor magazine, Spirit of the Times, as "Four elegant prints...from paintings by the celebrated artist A.F. Tait: the best of their kind ever published...$14 for the four." Tait himself was paid the handsome sum of $200 for each canvas.
Ruffed Grouse Shooting was published as Flush'd, and, along with On a Point: Quail Shooting (now in the collection of Yale University Art Gallery), was exhibited at the National Academy of Design in 1858. Both paintings were kept by Nathaniel Currier for his private collection. The present picture was subsequently acquired by Harry T. Peters, Jr.
Tait has come in from northern New York, where many weeks have been spent in a real hunter's life. His sketch-book is filled with wood and water life. May he live long enough to paint them all, and many more besides! His dogs and quail and grouse have become a kind of necessity to every well-ordered room.
His success in this realm was due in no small part to his association with the popular publishers Nathaniel Currier and James Ives. In 1857 Currier & Ives requested four large canvases of pointers and setters hunting woodcock, snipe, grouse and quail, to be published under the title American Field Sports. Working with renowned lithographer Louis Maurer as consultant, Tait produced "a set of pictures showing dogs, birds and setting of the finest possible quality", creating "the most symbolic illustrations of the sport obtainable."
The quality of the print making was equal to the appeal of the subjects, and the series was advertised in the outdoor magazine, Spirit of the Times, as "Four elegant prints...from paintings by the celebrated artist A.F. Tait: the best of their kind ever published...$14 for the four." Tait himself was paid the handsome sum of $200 for each canvas.
Ruffed Grouse Shooting was published as Flush'd, and, along with On a Point: Quail Shooting (now in the collection of Yale University Art Gallery), was exhibited at the National Academy of Design in 1858. Both paintings were kept by Nathaniel Currier for his private collection. The present picture was subsequently acquired by Harry T. Peters, Jr.