Not on display
- Artist
- Sir Edwin Henry Landseer 1802–1873
- Medium
- Oil paint on canvas on mahogany
- Dimensions
- Support: 405 × 908 mm
frame: 1015 × 1220 × 130 mm - Collection
- Tate
- Acquisition
- Presented by Robert Vernon 1847
- Reference
- N00412
Display caption
Landseer achieved enormous success with his scenes of animal life, which ranged from the heroic to the sentimental. This is one of several Highland scenes where the stag is portrayed as a noble beast: having endeavoured to hold the hounds at bay by retreating to a deep stream, the stag is defiant even in his final torment, before the deer-stalker's fatal shot. As a primordial contest between man and Nature, the subject of hunting had been an important theme in British art since at least the eighteenth century. Here the sense of struggle is intensified by the tumultuous scenery.
Gallery label, March 2010
Does this text contain inaccurate information or language that you feel we should improve or change? We would like to hear from you.
Explore
- emotions, concepts and ideas(16,532)
-
- emotions and human qualities(5,350)
-
- courage(56)
- recreational activities(2,849)
-
- hunting(165)
- animals: mammals(4,879)
-
- deer(123)
- dog, staghound(4)
You might like
-
Sir Edwin Henry Landseer A Scene at Abbotsford
exhibited 1827 -
Sir Edwin Henry Landseer High Life
1829, exhibited 1831 -
Henry Thomas Alken The Belvoir Hunt: Jumping into and out of a Lane
c.1830–40 -
Sir Edwin Henry Landseer Dignity and Impudence
1839 -
Sir Edwin Henry Landseer Low Life
1829, exhibited 1831 -
Henry Thomas Alken The Belvoir Hunt: The Meet
c.1830–40 -
Henry Thomas Alken The Belvoir Hunt: Full Cry
c.1830–40 -
Sir Edwin Henry Landseer Alexander and Diogenes
exhibited 1848 -
Sir Edwin Henry Landseer A Distinguished Member of the Humane Society
exhibited 1838 -
Sir George Howland Beaumont, Bt Landscape, with Jacques and the Wounded Stag
?1819 -
Sir Edwin Henry Landseer Boy, Donkey and Foal - Mischief in Full Play
1822 -
Ramsay Richard Reinagle Trees and Waterfall, a Lion Devouring a Deer
date not known -
Joseph Mallord William Turner Raby Castle: The East Front with Huntsmen, Horses, Hounds and Deer
1817 -
John Ferneley II Hunt Scurry
1832 -
William Mulready The Last In
1834–5, exhibited 1835