Meute foxhounds jaagt een ree een poel in 1841

Thomas Sutherland made this print of stag hunting using aquatint. Stag hunting was both a sport and a spectacle with specific rules and a specialized vocabulary, and its depiction in art such as this reveals much about class and social status. The rolling English landscape is populated with animals and hunters, both human and canine. The clothing of the hunters on horseback indicates that this would have been an aristocratic pastime. Hunting in England evolved from a means of subsistence to an aristocratic sport, and the game laws were designed to keep the lower classes from access to both the land and the animals upon it. Prints and paintings of hunting scenes thus served as status symbols, advertising the landowners’ control of territory. By examining the material and visual culture surrounding stag hunting, the social historian can uncover the hierarchies that ordered the British countryside.