Item | Waddesdon Manor

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artist or maker

Sartorius, John Nost (b.c 1755, d.1828)

Date

1805

Place of production

England, United Kingdom

Medium

oil on canvas

Type of object

paintings

Accession number

795

Oil painting depicting a hunting scene. Four huntsmen on horseback approach a wood on the right. The leader, on a bay horse, jumps a gate on the far right. A dog climbs over the gate. Behind him, a white horse bears a rider that looks at a group of four running hounds in the foreground approaching the gate behind the first horse. Four hounds precede the white horse. The two front riders wear rounded riding hats. Behind, two men on walking bay horses converse. They both wear top hats. One points to the wood with his whip. In the mid ground on the left, a huntsman on horseback exits the wood travelling towards the left and two hounds run towards the wood on the right.

John Nost Sartorius belonged to a family of minor British painters who specialised in sporting art. This is one of a group of seven canvases by Sartorius at Waddesdon that show hunting scenes. They were not all painted at the same time, but must have been grouped together by Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild to make a display that covers all aspects of the hunt, from entering a wood to look for quarry, as in this picture, to the final kill of the fox.

Commentary

This painting bears the same date and is the same size as the painting known as 'View Halloo' (acc. no. 793) which shows six riders exiting a wood at full gallop in pursuit of their quarry. They were probably painted and purchased as a pair.

The inventory taken at Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild's death in 1898 indicates that there were originally eight paintings in the set. They were displayed in the Bedroom Corridor in the main part of the house. When Ferdinand's sister Alice inherited Waddesdon, she kept them here in a group of seven. She also hung many similar pictures by Sartorius in the Bachelors' Wing in bedrooms destined for male guests, along with many other hunting and horse-riding themed paintings. These pictures suited the masculine tone of this part of the house, as well as giving Waddesdon the air of an English country house rather than a French or Renaissance château as other parts of the house suggest.

Although Ferdinand de Rothschild did not enjoy racing and gambling, he did hunt with the Rothschild staghounds. He first got to know the farming estate that was to become Waddesdon when hunting in the local area with his relations who lived nearby. Although Waddesdon was primarily built as a house for summer entertainment, smart shooting parties were held in the winter.

John Nost was the most successful artist of his family. His father, John, came from Nuremberg and settled in London around the 1720s. He began to produce paintings of horses and hunting scenes for aristocratic patrons in the 1760s. John Nost was popular with several very wealthy patrons including George, the Prince of Wales, whom he often met at the races in Newmarket. He exhibited at the Society of Artists and the Royal Academy in London. Sartorius made many paintings with the themes shown in these seven canvases, for example the four showing the Earl of Darlington Foxhunting with the Raby Pack, painted in 1804-5, which shows drawing cover, going to cover, full cry and the death (The Paul Mellon Collection).

Phillippa Plock, 2012

Physical description

Dimensions (mm) / weight (mg)

700 x 895 - sight

Signature & date

signed and dated, lower left: J N Sartorius Pint 1805

Labels

49
Label
on verso on stretcher, English blue-edged label in ink

History

Provenance

Acquired by Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild (b.1839, d.1898); inherited by his sister Alice de Rothschild (b.1847, d.1922); inherited by her great-nephew James de Rothschild (b.1878, d.1957); inherited by his wife Dorothy de Rothschild (b.1895, d.1988); bequeathed to Waddesdon (National Trust) in 1988.

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Approaching a Gate

On display in: