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Overview
Winifred Austen (1876-1964) was an English painter, etcher and aquatint engraver. Her favorite subjects were wild animals, and she was an accomplished book illustrator. At the Royal Academy in 1903, she exhibited The Day of Reckoning, a wolf pursued by hunters through a forest in snow. Austen was described as having great talent with the rare gift of sympathy with the animal world. Her early plates were overloaded with background, which the artist ultimately largely discarded, as in this middle period etching.
Austen was elected to the Society of Women Artists (1902), the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers (1907), the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours (1933), and from 1903, she was a fellow of the Royal Zoological Society.
Here Austen shows her appreciative and observant eye for a beautiful and intelligent breed, a red or Irish setter, a gundog, in characteristic pose. Can the setter see desirable birds nearby? The raised paw and intent expression indicates this is likely. If so, the dog will, as the breed name indicates, 'set' or crouch low, and stay frozen in that position. The birds are then flushed so the following guns can get a shot. In earlier days a net would be set to trap them.
See:
Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Setter
Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winifred_Austen
Dr Mark Stocker Curator, Historical International Art February 2018