AFA Summer 2019

Antiques & Fine Art 77 2019 Francis Barlow (England, 1626–1704), The Game Larder, 1672. Oil on canvas, 43 x 54½ inches. 1671 was passed, prohibiting persons from hunting game unless they owned a freehold on land with a yearly value of one hundred pounds or held a ninety-nine-year lease on land that had a yearly value of 150 pounds. The Game Act also prohibited all but the landed gentry from owning guns — and hunting dogs, specifically greyhounds, “setting dogs,” “retrieving dogs,” or dogs that might be used for poaching. Not surprisingly, a well-bred retriever was relatively expensive, costing about five pounds, the equivalent of the wages a skilled carpenter would have earned in four-and-a-half months. With its hunting dogs and abundance of game, this painting was an unabashed statement of wealth and entitlement. Implied in this work is the rich fare that such game provided. Cookbooks of the time, generally limited to the wealthy, specify receipts for hare pie, spiced with nutmegs, mallards stuffed with dates, sauced with wine and spices, and served up on platters rimmed with sugar — all expensive imported items. Less distinguished folk purchased game and meat from markets or raised domesticated ducks, geese, and rabbits. At the time this painting was created, letters from America, intent on luring settlers to the New World, repeat a common theme: that the American woods and fields teamed with game and that everyone there ate game and meat in abundance.