A sporting canvas

WITH two rangy bay horses’ conker-brown coats glistening in the dawn sunshine, warm breath emanating from their nostrils into the cold air like puffs of smoke and mist wreathing the parkland behind, two elegant tweed-jacketed and peak-capped members of hunt staff escort a pack of hounds on their morning exercise…

This is the typical countryside scene —with a nod to the classically cut attire worn in the 1920s or 1930s— that the sporting artist Daniel Crane captures so well.

Known for his hunting, racing (a detail of his painting Gladiators appeared on the front cover of the August 30 issue), military and pastoral scenes, Mr Crane is based in Louth, in Lincolnshire. But, last Saturday morning he and his wife, Ali, were autumn trail-hunting with the South Devon on Dartmoor, ahead of an exhibition hosted by the Earl and Countess of Devon at Powderham Castle, Exeter, that evening to raise funds for the 213-year-old pack.