The landscape in which he placed cheetah and attendants is an artificial composite far removed from their native hunting ground. Stubbs’ painting was not intended as a literal record of the demonstration in Windsor Great Park. In an age when foreign visitors were pictured at best as colourful exotics, at worst as sinister or ridiculous caricatures, Stubbs endowed the servants with a grace, nobility and authenticity equal to the magnificent creature they care for. and likewise ordered a large silver collar to be put around his neck for distinction and greater safety.’ He would henceforth lead a protected existence harrassed by neither man nor beast. Lloyd’s Evening Post reported that Cumberland gave instructions ‘for particular care to be taken of the stag that so bravely defended himself against the tiger. The cheetah’s adversary was also rewarded. They hoodwinked the animal again then ‘put a Collar round his Neck, with Chains, and, after feeding him with Part of the Deer, led him away.’ By the time the Indian servants caught up with the animal they found it placidly lapping at the blood of its victim. Chased out of the enclosure by the stag, it ran off and found a herd of more cooperative deer, one of which it seized by the throat and killed. The Duke of Cumberland and his guests were not entirely disappointed of their sport by the cheetah’s ignominious performance. 'The Tiger attempted to seize the Stag by the Haunch, but was beat off by his Horns a second Time he offered at his Throat, and the Stag tossed him off again a third Time the Tiger offered to seize him, but the Stag threw him a considerable distance, and then followed him, on which the Tiger turned Tail.' The St James’s Chronicle reported what happened next, referring to the animal by the name of the only Indian big cat known to eighteenth-century England: The other servant gestured towards the stag and the predator was unleashed. He then pulled back the hood leaving it, bonnet-like, on the top of the head and allowing the cheetah a first sight of its quarry. One of the servants knelt, holding it by a restraining sash around the hindquarters. First the animal was ‘hoodwinked’ by a scarlet blindfold placed over eyes and face and tied under the throat.
#Kingdom new lands stag trial#
He arranged a demonstration in Windsor Great Park on 30th June 1764.Ī stag was placed in an enclosure of the royal paddock while the cheetah was prepared for its trial by Pigot’s Indian servants. When told of this royal precedent, George III’s uncle, William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland – sanguinary victor, eighteen years earlier, of the battle of Culloden and known to history as ‘Butcher Cumberland’ – was eager to put the King’s cheetah through its paces. In the sixteenth century, Akbar the Great was said to have kept a thousand of them for that purpose, as the English landed gentry kept packs of foxhounds. George Stubbs (1724–1806) Hunterian Art Gallery, University of GlasgowĮasily tamed and trained, cheetahs had been used as hunting animals by the Mogul Emperors for hundreds of years.
0 kommentar(er)
