HUNTING: IN THE BROOKLYN FLEA AND IN COLONIAL TIMES

Fox Hunting

Prints by Samuel Howitt

Republished by Edward Orme, Bond St, 1812.

I'd say it was the fox hunting scene in Mary Poppins that commandeered a spot in my heart for the wild-game hunting aesthetic. Those red-clad Brits perched on their pure-breads chasing hairy scoundrels...!

So these old fox hunting place mats caught my eye at the Brooklyn Flea yesterday, and I had to take them. These dense, wooden place mats are well-suited for a robust English breakfast of black pudding, rashers, and fried bread. 

The images on the mats are from Samuel Howitt's engravings from the early 19th century. Samuel Howitt, I learned, was a English gent, sportsman, and artist who provided the visual counterpart to popular hunting tales from colonial India and Africa. He illustrated books like Historic, Military, and Naval Anecdotes of Personal Valour, Bravery, and Particular Incidents and Foreign Field Sports, Fisheries, and Sporting Anecdotes. I love these titles. (My autobiography: Charlotte Hundley. The Urban and Suburban Anecdotes of Personal Valor, Bravery, and Particular Saucy Incidents)

Anyway, I discovered that Howitt's watercolors and engravings, such as Battle of a Bulldog and a Monkey and Oriental Field Sports, are exotic, perverse, violent, and most definitely sources for the talented New York artist Mr. Walton Ford.