3-021-023 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

"The Unwelcome Visitor", by R. Ansdell, A.R.A., in the Exhibition of the Royal Academy, 1869. Engraving of a painting. 'This is a rather favourable example of Mr. Ansdell's practised skill as an animal-painter, and the subject, like that of another picture by him in the present exhibition of the Academy, is somewhat out of his beaten track. Here, besides the examples of the way in which the artist has "many a time and oft" represented sheep - rams and wethers, ewes and lambs - in all situations, including that of the parents defending their young, we have a specimen of the painter's ability in depicting Monsieur Reynard, under circumstances advantageous for the display of his vulpine, slinking, cunning, and cowardly cruelty. The situation represented may appear to southerners as rather forced and questionable; but we can assure them that in parts of Scotland the foxes are very large and powerful, and correspondingly audacious, and that often they are very destructive to sheep. And with this assurance we may safely leave the picture to tell its own tale to those who may see it merely through the medium of our Engraving'. From "Illustrated London News", 1869.