Briton Rivière

Briton Rivière was a British painter at the turn of the 19th century who was involved with the Royal Academy of Painting and was immensely interested in the animal world. An intensely academic painter, his devotion to the animal subject was unusual; even his paintings with human subjects are either mostly occupied with an animal companion, or an animal that has the attention of the subjects. This peculiar choice resulted in unique compositions from Rivière that dissolve the hierarchy between human and animal, and allow viewers to project slightly altered narrations onto familiar stories depicted in his work.