130 ANIMAL PAINTERS 



Francis Sartorius died on 5th March, 1804, in his 

 seventieth year. All that is known of his private 

 life is contained in the following rather quaint 

 passage taken from the memoir which was pub- 

 lished in the Sporting Magazine for April of that 

 year. Having referred in terms of praise to his 

 artistic abilities, to the universal respect in which 

 he was held, and to his conscientious discharge of 

 all private duties, the writer proceeds : — 



" By those who had his acquaintance he was known as an 

 affectionate father and hospitable friend, and if matrimony 

 be considered one of the predominant blessings of this life, 

 he enjoyed much more than most married men would have 

 considered enough, having been married to and cohabited 

 successively with five wives, the fourth of whom he lost 

 about the time of his fiftieth year ; the fifth and last lived 

 with him in the utmost extent of domestic happiness for 

 twenty-seven years relinquishing this life for a better only 

 in January last. The loss so powerfully preyed upon his 

 spirits that he gradually declined and survived her no more 

 than six weeks." 



The writer obviously errs in stating that the 

 artist enjoyed the society of his fifth wife for 

 twenty-seven years ; his fourth wife died when 

 he was about fifty years of age, and he himself 

 died twenty years afterwards. 



Though hunting scenes do not figure largely 

 among the paintings of Francis Sartorius, it may 

 be conjectured that he was fond of the sport, 

 from the lines, which occur in the same Magazine 

 three months after his decease (June, 1804) : 



