Jager met hond 1840 - 1880

This is Johannes Tavenraat's study of a huntsman with his dog, made with pen in brown ink, sometime in the mid-19th century. Hunting scenes, particularly those featuring gentlemen, were a common subject in Dutch art. But what's interesting here is that Tavenraat likely wasn't producing a finished artwork for public display. Rather, this sketch was probably meant to serve as a study for a larger painting, or perhaps just an exercise in capturing figures in motion. Consider the institutions of art in the Netherlands at this time. The art world was governed by academies and societies, and shaped by the tastes of wealthy patrons. Artists like Tavenraat often had to navigate these institutions to find success. The Rijksmuseum holds collections of drawings such as this to allow us to study not only the finished works of the Dutch Golden Age, but the social and institutional conditions that made such art possible.