Jagers in de stal maken hun dieren gereed 1794

William Ward created this mezzotint, ‘The First of September Morning’, sometime around the turn of the 19th century in England. Mezzotints, popular at the time, were often used to reproduce paintings for a wider audience. Here we see the accoutrements of the hunt: horses, dogs, and men in riding dress, all housed within a simple stable. In the 18th and 19th centuries, hunting was a deeply embedded social ritual in the English countryside. It was associated with aristocratic life, land ownership and the management of nature. The men attending to the dogs appear to be servants or hired hands, signifying the economic disparities structuring English social life. The art market played its own part in this structure. Institutions such as the Royal Academy shaped artistic taste, while printmakers like Ward catered to the desires of a land-owning class. To understand this image fully, we can turn to sources such as period newspapers, estate records, and sporting journals. Together, they can tell us much about the cultural and institutional contexts that made this image possible.