Collection Highlights: Western Art

A detail from the most celebrated of the early Italian paintings in the Museum, a masterpiece of Uccello's late style. Huntsmen and hounds in full cry (almost audible) after stags through a darkling wood (trees trimmed to allow mounted hunters free passage), with a crescent moon faint above. Somewhat similar paintings of this date customarily adorned marriage chests (cassoni), but this one is too large and its original purpose is unknown, as are the identities of the hunters, but it was probably connected with the circle of Lorenzo de' Medici in Florence. Part of the Fox-Strangways gift, 1850. [WA1850.31]

Second Floor, Room 43, Italian Renaissance.