Hunting on the Lagoon

Hunters set out across the shallows of a Venetian lagoon in two slender boats, archers drawing their bows on the waterfowl overhead while a heron stands sentinel among the reeds and a dark flock streams past the distant huts and cabin of a marshy island — an animated, sunlit record of a day’s waterfowling, every figure and bird observed with the freshness of an eyewitness. Vittore Carpaccio (about 1460–1525/1526), the great Venetian narrative painter whose story-cycles made him the chronicler of his city, painted this panel about 1490 to 1495; it is painted on both sides, the reverse carrying a trompe-l’oeil letter rack. The painting is held in the J. Paul Getty Museum.