OK!!! MY BHE 16 is ready and able. Time for a prairie rendezvous? I know a place... We could make it a preliminary sketch in advance of the finished painting. Send me an email address via PM and I'll swap pictures with you when we get home (we are in Charleston at present).

The “townie” on the right is saying, “But I shot my limit with my single barrel; do you really think I need two?”

I don't see it the way they have interpreted this painting. They refer to the "old" hunter on the right. The youth on the right, the younger hunter is clean-shaven and certainly younger than the "older" hunter on the left, who has a full beard. Is the one on the right "older" because he is more experienced. I see the fellow with the double-barrel has at least three and possibly as many geese on the ground as the hunter with his day's success slung over his shoulder having finished the hunt. They are equally successful. One is poor and making do with what he has and the successful older gentleman on the left can afford newer and better.

I also see the youth admiring the newfangled double barrel breech loading shotgun as if to say one day I will have one of those, and maybe even some of those fine clothes.

I can't agree with their assessment of the painting, since anyone who calls the fowling piece a rifle and mentions one bullet compared to the shotgun which spreads shot does not know anything about the painting, guns, or hunting.

Industrial revolution? Yes for the shotgun and clothing. Perhaps a reference to the prosperity of the industrialists to the agrarian society. Maybe a nod the the carpetbaggers who came south and the poverty of the poor Southerner making do with what he has? That is why the Parker Gun was rare in my part of the South and everyone relied upon a single barrel until after WWII, but even then a Parker was out of reach. Heck, we knew everyone in the whole county who hunted with a Parker.

My 2 cents and opinion. So don't argue with it.

Maybe it's like those fishing pictures you see: the guy in waders with the fancy rod and reel offering money to the barefoot kid with the can of worms and cane pole, and a big stringer of fish?

Jerry, I associated with art historians for my entire career, and I can assure you that the number that know anything about firearms is very (very) small.

I'd definitely agree with Garry re art historians. But I will say that the best painter I knew back in the day could handle a shotgun quite well!

Must have been a house painter? :rotf:

Hmmmmm….

Nope.

I guess I should take offense at this statement (being trained as a painter), but I'd have to be a better shot for that to happen.:banghead::rotf:

BUT, how in the heck does the good Mike know how poorly I shoot?!:shock: