Hunting Scene with a Harbor

American 18th Century

National Gallery of Art

Two pale-skinned horsemen and a pack of ten dogs race across a brown ridge overlooking a river in this long, horizontal painting. The horsemen turn to face us as they and the dogs chase an unidentifiable brown animal from right to left. The front rider wears a peacock-blue coat and black hat over gray hair, while the following rider wears a pewter-gray coat and darker hat over white hair. Most of the dogs have white coats dappled with tan or black spots and one dog is chocolate brown. A man walks along the ridge beyond the dogs and two more men further to the left are shown from the waist up beyond the crest of the ridge. Tall, leafy green trees are placed in four groupings across the left two-thirds of the landscape. The landscape beyond the trees transitions to paler brown and then shades of slate blue. A solitary windmill perches on a hill on the far left and faces gently sloping blue mountains rising in the far distance. Those blue mountains slope down to a wide, pearl-white river tinged with teal blue on the right. Tiny ships and sailboats travel the river, and buildings line the riverbank and cluster on the hills above. A muted blue-green sky filled with puffy white clouds with flax yellow highlights spans the top half of the scene.