Hunting Party with Badger, Loire Valley, France

At that time in France, badger hunting was a working-class sport, popular among farm workers and villagers. The meat was commonly used in rural cuisine, plus badgers were considered pests. This daguerreotype shows successful hunters, dead prey at their feet, being rewarded with wine. One man, exhausted by his efforts, has dozed off. The image was definitely posed, but the dead badger suggests an element of truth behind it. Hunt scenes were popular in various art forms in the mid-1800s.