EDWIN LORD WEEKS | DEPARTURE FOR THE HUNT

E. Rubinstein (and sold, their estate, Christie's, New York, May 29, 1981, lot 223, illustrated, with incorrect medium) 

Acquired at the above sale

Ulrich W. Hiesinger, Edwin Lord Weeks: Visions of India, exh. cat., Vance Jordan Fine Art, New York, October 31-December 12, 2002, p. 38, illustrated 

In the present work, a group of human and animal protagonists wait to depart for a princely hunt. Two enormous elephants, one with his trunk raised in delight and the other deliciously clothed in silks, velvet, gold bullion and a double-seated howdah (a back-mounted chariot) dominate the courtyard. A pair of cheetahs, integral to the hunt in their role as trained deer and gazelle hunters, are leashed at right. A ripple of excitement moves through the assembled as the magnificently garbed gentleman at far right descends the stairs, marking the commencement of the hunt.

The setting for Departure for the Hunt is a carefully curated assemblage of architectural highlights from the city of Fatepuhr Sikri, founded in 1571 as the capital of the Mughal Empire by Akbar the Great (1542-1605). The city was built on a rocky ridge, bordered by a lake and three high walls, 40 kilometers southwest of Agra. As with Weeks’ most vivid pictures, he has combined his detailed architectural and figural studies with a sense of theatricality and historicity, evoking the days of the sixteenth century Moguls.

Weeks' first trip to India in 1882-83 proved to be an immense source of inspiration; he returned to the country intermittently over the following decade, culminating in a travel account published in serial format for Harper’s Bazaar magazine — titled From the Black Sea through Persia and India — which earned the artist fame and widespread artistic recognition in Europe and America. Throughout these trips, he was an indefatigable worker, known to set up a camp stool in the midst of a busy market to record local models. He also purchased photographs, in addition to taking and developing his own, which he frequently used to record the architectural details of the cities he encountered during his travels (fig. 1).

This lot will be included in the forthcoming Edwin Lord Weeks catalogue raisonné from the Ellen K. Morris archives and now in preparation by Edward Levin.