Hunting Party with Badger, Loire Valley, France (c. 1850): Art, History and Details

Hunting Party with Badger, Loire Valley, France (c. 1850) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Hunt scenes were popular in various art forms in the mid-1800s. At that time in France, badger hunting was a working-class sport, popular among farm workers and villagers. The meat was commonly used in rural cuisine, plus badgers were considered pests. This daguerreotype shows successful hunters, dead prey at their feet, being rewarded with wine. One man, exhausted by his efforts, has dozed off. The image was definitely posed, but the dead badger suggests an element of truth behind it.

Object facts

• Title: Hunting Party with Badger, Loire Valley, France
• Date: c. 1850
• Culture: France
• Type: Photograph
• Technique: daguerreotype, quarter plate
• Dimensions: Overall: 8 x 10.5 cm (3 1/8 x 4 1/8 in.)
• Collection: PH - French 19th Century
• Department: Photography
• Accession number: 2021.52

A detail from the museum

In the mid-1800s in France, badger hunting was a working-class sport, popular among farm workers and villagers.

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Johnson, Mark M. "Through the Looking Glass: A Portfolio." The Daguerreian Annual 2015, (2015): 51.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.