Il Parco degli Astroni - The Wooded Crater Bottom with Hunt in Progress
Date:
1783
Materials & Techniques:
Watercolor and graphite on medium, slightly textured, cream laid paper, mounted on moderately thick, slightly textured, cream wove paper
Dimensions:
Sheet: 10 1/4 x 14 5/8 inches (26 x 37.1 cm)
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1981.25.2424
Gallery Label:
Il Parco degli Astroni was the traditional location for the notoriously bloodthirsty boar hunts of the Neapolitan court. One such hunt was observed in 1784 by a Miss Berry, who concluded that “a more barbarous amusement was never practiced by the savages of America.” Beckford’s own visit to the king of Naples was not a success, for he was an early and passionate opponent of blood sports. In Cozens’s watercolor the spear-carrying hunters appear to belong to an indeterminate age, neither fully in the past nor the present. Their archaic quality perhaps reflects Beckford’s own view of hunters as embodying a primitive nature that civilized souls like himself had long since shaken off. Back home in England, Beckford built an enormous wall around his estate in Wiltshire to keep out hunters. Gallery label for Great British Watercolors from the Paul Mellon Collection at the Yale Center for British Art (Yale Center for British Art, 2008-06-09 - 2008-08-17)