John Emms (1843-1912)

John Emms (1843-1912)
The New Forest Hounds, with Henry Martin Powell (1868-1943), Master of Foxhounds
Signed JNO EMMS (lower right)
Oil on canvas
76 x 114.5cm; 30 x 45in

Provenance:
Sotheby's, London, Victorian Paintings, Drawings and Watercolours, 14 June 1989, lot 105
Private Collection

Henry Martin Powell (1868-1943), of Wilverley Park, Lyndhurst, served as Master of Foxhounds of The New Forest Hunt between 1894-99 and again between 1905-07. His father Colonel William Martin Powell (1824-1909) had been Honorary Secretary to the Hunt between 1853-1887. In her history of the New Forest Hunt, Mary S. Lovell notes Henry's "dashing style of riding" and records that he was said to be "the best woodland huntsman who ever lived in the Forest” (Mary S. Lovell, “A Hunting Pageant”, 1981 p.134). He was also a great patron of Emms, commissioning the a portrait of the New Forest Foxhounds, which sold at auction $760,000 in 2006, a record price for the artist.