Agasse’s reputation rests largely on his capacity to portray animals not only with great anatomical precision, but also to capture their characters in what can be seen as actual animal portraits. When Agasse was continuing his training as a draughtsman in Paris in the studio of Jacques-Louis David, he was also taking courses in anatomy and dissection at the Musée d’histoire naturelle. The foxhounds portrayed here belonged to George Lane Fox (1793-1848), a nephew of Lord Rivers, the artist’s most important patron. Agasse went to the Lane Fox estate Bramham Park in Yorkshire to visit the kennels and this picture dates to 1837 whereas another, portraying only four hounds from the same kennels, was painted a year earlier. The sheer scale of the composition together with the central hound’s serious and compelling expression give this work an impressive sense of monumentality and grandeur. All the various attitudes of the dogs are brilliantly captured; a moment of tension between two rivals, tiredness, curiosity, nobility and elegance.