Pleasant Prospect: A Day with the Stag
n.d.
Medium
Watercolor and pen and brown ink, over graphite, on cream wove paper
Dimensions
24.8 × 30.6 cm (9 13/16 × 12 1/16 in.)
Classification
watercolor
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
39169
Art Historical Context
John Leech’s “Pleasant Prospect: A Day with the Stag” captures a quintessential Victorian sporting scene with the artist’s signature wit and lightness of touch. Active in mid-nineteenth-century Britain, Leech was celebrated for his caricatures and illustrations in Punch magazine, where he gently satirized the habits of the upper classes. The title hints at the pleasures—and perhaps the absurdities—of stag hunting, a pastime reserved for the elite and frequently depicted in the sporting prints of the era. Executed in watercolor and pen-and-brown ink over graphite on cream wove paper, the drawi...
About the Artist
John Leech · 1817–1864
John Leech (1817–1864) was born in London and educated at Charterhouse, where he formed a lifelong friendship with William Makepeace Thackeray. He briefly studied medicine before abandoning it for art, publishing his first comic character studies from London street life as early as 1835. Though largely self-taught as an illustrator, he absorbed the robust tradition of English caricature establishe...