Summer 2017

2017 Antiques & Fine Art 141 these images as affirmations of man’s biblica lly sanctioned dominion over animals. 2 During the last quarter of the 1800s, Irish-born William Michael Harnett became one of the leading trompe l’oeil artists working in the United States, inspiring a legion of painters, including John F. Peto and John Haberle. During his lifetime, Harnett painted several different versions of Af ter the Hunt (Fig.6), featuring realistically rendered dead game suspended alongside the instruments of their demise, and set against the backdrop of painted doors with elaborate iron hinges. Critics of ten praised his sk ills for testing the limits of their percep- tions with his convincingly realistic paintings. Newspaper articles often reported incidents where i ncredu lou s v iewers reached out to touch the objects he had depicted. 3 Painters like Astley D. M. Cooper used trompe l’oeil to immortalize a passing way of life. The Buffalo Head (Relics of the Past) (Fig. 7) was originally owned by William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody, who proudly displayed it in the lobby of his Irma Hotel in Wyoming. The largest in Astley’s series of trompe l’oeil paintings on the subject, it paid tribute to the legendary life of Buffalo Bill and the vanishing Wild West. The taxidermied buffalo head in the center of the painting was intended to remind viewers of the dwindling population of bison that once roamed the Western Plains in herds of millions, as well as one of their most celebrated hunters. Buffalo Bill earned his nickname after purportedly shooting more than four thousand bison while supplying meat for the Kansas Pacific Railroad workers. Wild Spaces, Open Seasons: Hunting and Fishing in American Art, a traveling exhibition organized by Shelburne Museum, the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, the Joslyn Art Museum, and the Fig. 7: Astley D. M. Cooper (1856–1924) The Buffalo Head (Relics of the Past), before 1910. Oil on canvas, 40 x 36 inches. Buffalo Bill Center of the West, Cody, Wyo.; Bequest in memory of the Houx and Newell families (4.64). Dixon Gallery and Gardens, is on view at Shelburne Museum from June 3 until August 27, 2017. It is the first major exhibition to explore American artists’ fascination with hunting and fishing from the nineteenth century through the end of World War II. This exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on The Arts and the Humanities. For information call 802.985.3346 or visit www.shelburnemuseum.org.  Kory Rogers is head curator at the Shelburne Museum, Shelburne, Vermont. 1. Carol Clarke, Charles Deas and 1840s America (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2009). 2. Kenneth L. Ames, Death in the Dining Room & Other Tales of Victorian Culture (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992). 3. Michael Leja, Looking Askance: Skepticism and American Art from Eakins to Duchamp (Berkley, LA and London: University of California Press).