HOWITT, Samuel (British, 1765-1822).
Silver Fox.
Watercolor and graphite on paper.
Signed lower right: ‘Howitt’.
Inscribed ‘Silver Fox’ lower center and ‘91’.
7 1/8" x 4 3/8" sheet, 10" x 7 3/4" mount.

The fox is shown in profile, alert and mid-stride upon a sun-warmed rocky ledge, its silvered coat picked out with delicate parallel strokes of pale blue-gray and washed with rust at the throat and shoulder. The full brush of the tail, tipped in white, counterbalances the composition against a backdrop of weathered boulders and trailing foliage.

The silver fox, a melanistic color phase of the red fox (Vulpes vulpes) rather than a distinct species, held a particular fascination for British audiences during this period. Its pelt was among the most valuable in the global fur trade, with prime North American skins commanding extraordinary sums at the London auctions of the Hudson’s Bay Company, the chartered British concern that dominated the trans-Atlantic peltry market from 1670 well into the nineteenth century. Beyond commercial appeal, the animal fed a broader Georgian and Regency enthusiasm for cataloging the natural productions of empire and its trading environs, a project sustained by sporting gentlemen, naturalists, and the publishing houses that served them. The numeral “91” suggests the present sheet once formed part of just such a systematic album or natural history portfolio.

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