Falconers setting out on a Hunt, A group of falconers rest by a fountain with their horses and dogs., 1665-1668

Vanderbilt photo identifier: SC.MSS.088.DUTC.0713; Public Notes: From the Prado: This painting belongs to a series of scenes of hunting parties at the entrance to country manors or villas built in a classical style. They all document a series of innovations in fashion and dressage, which reveal them to have been painted in the artist`s final phase. In keeping with this chronology, the male characters sport the French clothing and hairstyles that prevailed among the Dutch upper classes after 1665, and the way the horses are ridden -with the legs stretched forwards, causing the body to lean slightly backwards- is the result of an innovation in the art of horse-riding that was introduced at about that time.