Wilde zwijnen 1872

Johannes Tavenraat created this drawing of wild boars using pen and brown ink. Boar hunting was a popular pastime amongst the European aristocracy from the medieval period onwards. In the Netherlands, the right to hunt was legally restricted to the nobility and landowners. In this context, Tavenraat’s drawing seems to reflect the social structure of his time, in which ownership of land conferred the right to exploit its natural resources. The absence of a clear date for this work presents something of a puzzle. Archival sources might provide a clearer picture of when it was made, and who might have commissioned or purchased it. Art historians are detectives, piecing together the social context of a work to reveal its place within the broader culture. In this case, more research might clarify what this drawing tells us about the politics of hunting in the Netherlands.