Ferdinand von Rayski spent the best part of his artistic life travelling around Saxony and Franconia, where he would paint commissioned portraits of the local aristocracy. Himself of noble stock, and originally destined for a military career, Rayski had always had a penchant for art. In 1823 he enrolled at the Dresden Academy of Drawing, although he apparently found the curriculum too restricting and his stay in Paris in 1834/35 seems to have unleashed a sense of artistic independence. By the late 1830s, he had already become the leading painter of aristocratic portraits in Franconia. By 1840 he had settled in Dresden, Saxony, where he was to stay for the rest of his life.

Our painting is the earliest Rayski painting depicting a hunting party, and in that sense is a forerunner of the canvas acquired in 2016 by the Paris hunting museum. The Count von Einsiedel, who features as the man second from left, with his back turned towards the viewer, commissioned the present work. Rayski was a friend of the Count’s: he painted the rather poignant portrait of the Einsiedel heir, Haubold von Einsiedel, which today hangs in the Berlin National Gallery [4]. Rayski has depicted a group of men enjoying a break during a hunting trip near the little town of Königswartha, close to the family seat of the Einsiedel family at Schloss Milkel, near Bautzen in Saxony. The hunt has already gathered in some results, judging by the row of hares arranged along the ground on the right. A storm is clearly brewing, and heavy clouds can be seen amassing across the top of the canvas.

The Albertinum in Dresden holds a large number of his paintings, including some wonderful animal portraits. Although he has tended to be regarded as merely a portrait painter of the minor aristocracy, his unusual eye, and the interesting quirks that so typify an independent style, makes him a special artist.