Fox Hunting in Sport, by Jemima Blackburn (née Wedderburn) (1823-1909). Dated 1849, "near Edinburgh." Caption: "Hounds meet... a little dog in a great fright." Scenes of Animal Life & Character, p. 14. Click on the image to enlarge it.
In this drawing, the focus, as indicated by the caption, is the little dog surrounded by a handful of the eager hounds. Blackburn's skill in depicting vigorous animal life in all its variety of attitudes, is brilliantly on display here. Most of the hounds are eager for the chase, several watching the huntsman for his next movement or the call to action. The ones that have been distracted by the dog are nosing around him harmlessly: the words, "great fright," are humorously tongue-in-cheek, since the little creature looks up at one of them more appealingly than warily. Above all looms the hunter on his unmistakably noble mount, looking down benignly, not so much ready to intervene as simply to call the hounds to order.
The marvellous design on the book cover shows animals of many species, from a mouse to an elephant, on a border surrounding the central motif of a young girl encircled happily by a leopard, a tiger, and a lion, and bears the text, "For every kind of Beasts and of Birds, and of Serpents, and of Beasts in the sea, is tamed and hath been tamed of mankind. James 3, 7-8" — there is every encouragement here to enter into the artist's own sense of delighted harmony. To foster that is, surely, the best way of all to foster kindness to other species. Jacqueline Banerjee
Bibliography
Blackburn, Jemima. The Paintings and Memoirs of a Victorian Lady. Edited with an introduction by Robert Fairley. North Pomfret, Vermont: Trafalgar Squre Publishing, 1989.
JB (Jemima Blackburn). Scenes of Animal Life & Character from Nature & Recollection. London: Griffith & Farran, 1858. Internet Archive, from a copy in Boston Public Library. Web. 18 May 2026.
Created 18 May 2026