Eagle & Fox

Book Description

London: James Daniell, Dec. 9, 1799. Mezzotint in colours by John Murphy. 19 x 23 1/2 inches. Northcote, who worked as pupil and assistant to Sir Joshua Reynolds for five years from 1771, produced works in a number of genres: portraits, historical and subject pictures, morally instructive scenes and during the 1790s animal painting. The present image of the eagle (a Christian symbol of the triumph of good over evil) encountering a fox (a universal symbol of guile) seems to offer both a fine double-portrait of the nature 'red in tooth and claw' as well as recalling Northcote's earlier instructive series: although the outcome of the encounter is finely balanced, the eagle (good) will undoubtedly triumph over the fox (guile) in the end. It is one of a linked group of prints that he arranged to have engraved by Samuel Reynolds, Charles Turner or James Murphy. Le Blanc 15; cf. D. Snelgrove, The Paul Mellon Collection: British Sporting and Animal Prints 1658-1874, number 6; Lennox-Boyd 76, second state.

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