Tur

Walton Ford, Tur, 2007, watercolor and gouache on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the American Art Forum and Nion T. McEvoy, 2008.4A-C, © 2007, Walton Ford
Walton Ford, Tur, 2007, watercolor and gouache on paper, overall: 95132 in. (241.3335.3 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the American Art Forum and Nion T. McEvoy, 2008.4A-C, © 2007, Walton Ford

Artwork Details

Title
Tur
Artist
Date
2007
Location
Not on view
Dimensions
overall: 95132 in. (241.3335.3 cm)
Copyright
© 2007, Walton Ford
Credit Line
Gift of the American Art Forum and Nion T. McEvoy
Mediums Description
watercolor and gouache on paper
Classifications
Highlights
Subjects
  • Animal — cattle
Object Number
2008.4A-C

Artwork Description

Walton Ford's Tur is an allegory rendered in the style of nineteenth-century naturalists' illustrations. It centers on an aurochs, the huge ancestor of cattle that was hunted on royal Polish preserves until 1627, when the last of the species was killed. In Ford's symbolic painting, the aurochs stands on the edge of a dense forest, and human bones lay before him. These remains allude to the fate of trespassers on the royal lands who, like the aurochs, died at the hands of noblemen who controlled and protected their hunting grounds.

Works by this artist (1 item)

John Adams Whipple, House of General Washington, Cambridge, Massachusetts, ca. 1855, salted paper print, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase from the Charles Isaacs Collection made possible in part by the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment, 1994.91.285
House of General Washington, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Artist
Dateca. 1855
salted paper print
Not on view