Washington Winter Show 2013

40 This page is sponsored by Jean Taylor Federico The private library of an English country house also naturally reflected the interests of its owner. A unique confluence of the printed word and art was the highly collectable fore-edge painting. These curiosities were made by clamping a book in a vise and painting with watercolor on the fanned edge. Once completed, the book was returned to its natural position and the page ends were gilt, masking the painting. These rare books were first made in the mid-1600s, but examples with sporting and animal themes were primarily done in the nineteenth to early twentieth centuries. Oddly, often-times the subjects of these books had little to do with the fore-edge depictions. For example, an 1840 edition of The Poetical Works of Thomas Campbell was embellished with a charming scene of two Victorian gentlemen wearing top hats fishing from a skiff in a river, their oars acting as pilings [Fig. 3]. SHOOTING While there were advances in rod making and different flies tailored to the available fish, the principals of angling remained the same, and over time the rituals were passed down through the generations. In contrast, shooting developed as a sport as a direct result of advances in firearms. By 1766 the “first book on prose solely on shooting” was written by Thomas Page, a watch and gunmaker from Norwich, entitled The Art of Shooting Flying: Familiarly explained by a Dialogue, containing Directions for the choice of guns for various occasions, an account of divers experiments, discovering the execution of barrels of different lengths and bores, with many useful hints for the Improvement of Young Practitioners, entirely New. Across the countryside, gentlemen were shooting the local game, such as partridge, and along the marshes, snipe and other wildfowl. The works of Samuel Howitt, an avid sportsman, animal and sporting painter, illustrator, and engraver active at the turn of the nineteenth century, give great insight into British country pursuits of the time. A prolific artist, many of his original works were reproduced as prints [Fig. 4]. The urban middle class embraced these reproductions in kinship with the traditions of the landed gentry and as windows to the countryside. One of Howitt’s bound volumes, entitled The British Sportsman and first published in 1812, was comprised of seventy of his engravings illustrating a cross-section of sporting activities and wild game. Shooting parties in the Scottish Highlands also held a particular allure to the “emancipated serfs of colleges, clubs, courts of law, and benches of legislation, and of the bustle and tumult of city life.” 2 The rugged mountain terrain of the moors offered Fig. 4: After Samuel Howitt (English, 1765–1822), Pheasant Shooting , Partridge Shooting , and Wild Duck Shooting. Each published by Edward Orme, London, 1809. Each Aquatint, Each 10¾ x 14½ inches. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Norman R. Bobins. challenging sport, abundant game, and relaxation. In an 1840 article entitled Rod and Gun written by James Wilson, F.R.S.E. (Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh), he reported: This is the bliss of solitude, absolute loneliness; a taste of which occasionally is as necessary to the mind as salt to animal health. The Highlands thus become the licking-places of the sportsmen to whom shooting is a relaxation and a pleasure. 3 He continued with practical advice on the pastime: