Scraps: British Sporting Drawings from the Paul Mellon Collection

Drawing by Samuel Howitt used as illustration in a book of fables published in 1818. The rooster and dog are traveling together. The fox tries to trick the rooster into descending, but the rooster leads the unwitting fox to the dog instead.The National Sporting Library and Museum in Middleburg, Virginia has mounted an art exhibit—Scraps: British Sporting Drawings from the Paul Mellon Collection. The exhibit will run from April 6 to June 30, 2012 and will provide a worthwhile destination for those in town for the Virginia Foxhound Show over the Memorial Day weekend in May.

The title, Scraps, is inspired by a series of Henry Alken drawings by the same name, published in the early 1800s, in a loose, informal, and sometimes humorous vein. The exhibit includes original examples of these works by Alken and other sporting artists of the period: Samuel Howitt, Edwin Landseer, Henry Heath, Thomas Rowlandson, Thomas Miles Richardson, and others.

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