Greenhorn

mid-15c., “young horned animal,” from green in sense of “new, fresh, recent” + horn.  Applied to new soldiers from c.1650; extended to any inexperienced person by 1680s.

Well I am retracting my Christmas list and asking you all to pool together your resources and bid on - and win - this set of ten hilarious aquatint engravings by John Ferneley (1782-1860).  Got it?  Good.

I first saw them in Richmond, at the Virginia Fine Arts Museum, and I can't tell if that museum foolishly decided to sell them, or if there are multiple copies of them floating around, but whatever the story is on their current status, the story of their creation is well worth the 5k.  Not to mention that the artwork and corresponding captions are worth a chuckle (or ten).  Sadly only one photo was available to be purloined on that auction site and I don't think it can be enlarged so the caption can be read.  Any artists out there with access to academic catalogs let me know if better images exist.

So.  Count Sandor's Hunting Exploits in Leicestershire...that's the somewhat facetious name of the 1833 series of 'comic mishaps,' for each depicts the Hungarian nobleman in various stages of disaster, surrounded by - or immersed in, or dragged through - the countryside.  There's more to it than a painter slyly mocking foreign aristocracy attempting an English pursuit, though...in fact, the complete opposite proves to be the case.  I located a book that reveals something of the character of both Ferneley the artist and Sandor the aristocrat here (starting on page 125 and continuing through to 130), and apparently the count commissioned the works for himself, and brought them back to his homeland at the conclusion of his British holiday...the man clearly had a sense of humor, and was more than a little insane.

Count Sandor started his career as a reckless soul when, as a toddler, he allegedly bit a dog that had first bit him; he grew into adulthood refusing equestrian lessons from his tutor and instead declaring that, "the man who has to learn to ride will never be a horseman."  It would seem that these words were the motto by which he lived; between hunting, steeplechase, and curricle racing, the count spent more days of his life with broken bones than without, and only slowed his pace "after he had been flung on his head on an iron railing" and had to spend well over a year in an asylum.  Although he wasn't actually killed by this accident, when he did eventually pass away, his funeral was characteristic of his life - twice the horses leading the hearse bolted and carried his body back to the stables.