John Emms

(British, 1843-1912)Huntsmen and Hunt Staff at Earth with Hounds and a Terrier, signed lower right "J. Emms/1903", oil on canvas, 92-1/2 x 68-1/4 in.; modern parcel gilt and painted wood frame, 105 x 81 in.˜˜Note: A late 19th˜and early 20th˜century realist painter, John˜Emms was best known for his handsome paintings of horses, hunting dogs and scenes of the local gentry engaged in sport. While little is known of˜Emms˜early training he is likely to have trained with the painter˜Lord Frederick Leighton˜and˜Emms˜own father, a painter who may have given him his start in the arts.˜Emms˜began exhibiting at the Royal Academy in London in 1866˜and by 1872 had settled in˜Lyndhurst, England.˜ The sporting life that he found there and the eccentricities of the gentry suited him and many of the patrons that commissioned his paintings were acquaintances of his from riding and hunting. It was said that he was himself somewhat bohemian and ?colorful,? and in his later years, his lifestyle left him consistently short of funds.This composition is one of the largest that Emms is known to have painted.Provenance: Red Fox Fine Art, Virginia; Private Florida Collection
Condition Report: unlined, scattered retouch, restretched on newer stretcher, vertical and horizontal stretcher marks, slight dirt layer