[Stag in Cart]

Horatio Ross British, born Scotland

Not on view

Far better known in his own day as an athlete and a sportsman than as a photographer, Ross was, even in his sixties, judged the finest shot in Scotland. He described deerstalking as "the most fascinating of all British field-sports." Keen on the challenge of pitting his knowledge, stamina, and experience against his quarry's superior senses of smell, sight, and hearing, Ross nevertheless possessed a gentlemanly concern for avoiding undue suffering in his kills and for maintaining the forest.
Here, Ross photographed this trophy with a remarkable directness, making an image unsettlingly unromanticized in its four-square presentation and extreme realism. The stag, antlers pointed toward the viewer, seems not only to spill out of the tilted cart but out of the picture itself.

[Stag in Cart], Horatio Ross (British, Rossie Castle, near Montrose, Scotland 1801–1886 Scotland), Albumen silver print from glass negative

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