Study of a bloodhound

Executed in 1848, this study of a bloodhound reflects the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood's insistence on painting directly from nature at a moment when Hunt was among the group's most committed advocates of that approach. Animal studies occupied an important place in the Brotherhood's practice, serving as exercises in the sustained observation from life that they believed had been abandoned by academic painters working from conventional formulae. Hunt's careful attention to the bloodhound's specific physiognomy — the heavy jowls, the deep-set eyes, the characteristic drooping ears — reflects the same impulse toward fidelity to the actual specimen rather than the idealized type that informed his landscape and figure painting. The work now in the Art Gallery of New South Wales preserves an early example of the Brotherhood's naturalistic ambitions applied to animal subjects.

Oil on canvas with careful attention to the specific qualities of the bloodhound's coat — the short, dense fur is built up through small directional strokes that follow the physical contours of the animal. The heavy facial skin is modeled with tonal gradations that capture the characteristic drooping weight of the breed, and the eyes are given particular attention as centers of psychological expression.