Jacques Laurent Agasse

The dogs depicted in the lower half of this painting are a study for the pack of hounds in Agasse's painting Departure for the Hunt painted in 1803, now in the Musée d'Art et d'Histoire, Geneva.  The artist, a native of Switzerland, had settled permanently in England in 1800 and Departure for the Hunt is considered one of the "most successful of his early 'English' offerings."¹  Tradition has long held that the Geneva painting's setting is on the grounds of Brocket Hall, in Hertfordshire, the country seat of the first Viscount Melbourne and Agasse's Record Book for June to August 1803 notes that he stayed at Brocket Hall during this period.²

1.  See Geneva, Musée d'Art et d'Histoire, Jacques-Laurent Agasse 1767-1849, exhibition catalogue, Geneva 1988, p. 62.
2.  Ibid.; a letter from Lord Brockton to Judy Egerton, dated July 1988, states that it is not Brockton Hall.