'Taking the Deer: the Duke of Atholl with foresters', Edwin Landseer

This is a study for ‘The Death of a Deer in Glentilt’ (in a private collection), one of Landseer’s earliest grand deer-hunting pictures set in the Scottish Highlands. The artist made several sketches for the work while staying with the Duke of Atholl for three years in succession in the mid-1820s; but he only completed it in 1829. The influence of Rubens’s hunting scenes on Landseer’s composition is evident.