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The sport of hawking, which had largely fallen into remission in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, enjoyed a marked revival in the early nineteenth century among aristocratic sportsmen. In this rapidly executed and freely painted sketch Landseer conjures a scene in which two young ladies of the castle (which is itself visible through the doorway) pay a visit to the Falconer's house. They watch intently as a young boy, possibly their brother, smartly dressed in a slashed doublet and hose, feeds a hawk from the hand, whilst the Falconer himself peers over his shoulder, possibly offering instruction.
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