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COUNTRY LIFE AND SPORTS
Because
Julia meets people from all over the country at
the sporting events she attends, she has a good
selection of pictures of all kinds of country
sports and pastimes. The early engravings show how
our ancestors amused themselves long ago. Hawking,
shooting, hunting, poaching, fishing, archery,
village boxing matches, early Polo, racing,
ballooning etc, have all been depicted in prints
dating before 1860.
On a different theme, Julia
has some accounts of the building of railways and
new stations, mostly from the early editions of
"The Illustrated London News", from 1840 onwards,
fascinating if you are a railway enthusiast and
quite inexpensive.
There is a lovely series of
engravings, published c.1820, by W.H.Pyne, of
trades and pastimes. Beautifully drawn figures are
shown mending chairs, cutting wood, making rope,
sculpting a statue, building boats and even a
Customs Officer, all in a series of small pictures
on one page. Every kind of animal, domestic or
wild, has been shown in an engraving over the last
300 years. The larger size engravings by artists
such as Stubbs are superb but not easy to find and
quite costly, however, it is much easier to find
smaller engravings which might have been included
in a book on farming or sporting life.
Julia
tries to find antique engravings of early breeds
of pigs, cows, goats, sheep and fowl. At the
moment, there is a good selection of views of
cockerels and hens, published in 1868.
The
outstanding success of the last two years has been
the work of Mary Ann Rogers. Her rip roaring
pictures of cockerals, hens,pheasants, hares and
foxhounds, in Limited Editions, now grace a number
of kitchens, making their owners smile in the
mornings when they appear for breakfast!.
Wild
animals have not been forgotten, so there are
small antique engravings of African animals and a
selection of pictures of whales and dolphins by
Archibald Thorburn. English wild birds, from a
series by Gronveld and Frowhawk were published in
1890 and their delicate colouring is a delight.
These are £18 each.
Perhaps the larger
lithographs by modern artists, will satisfy the
present fashion for detailed pictures of large
animals such as elephants or tigers, and help to
fill the walls of rooms furnished in a minimalist
style? All you have to do is to tell Julia which
animal interests you and she can give you an idea
of what is available.
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Lads, signed
by the artist M.A. Rogers
Antique
view of Hawking
Limited
Edition print by Geoffrey Rollinson
Hunting View by F.A.
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