Setting Off for the Hawking Hunt

These two wooden panels have stayed together through half a century of sales. The Belvedere traces them from a private collection abroad to the Dorotheum, Vienna's old auction house, in 1971, then to a private owner in the city, and finally to the Galerie Fischer in Lucerne, where the museum bought both in 1981. Querfurt signed and dated neither, so they can only be placed in the 18th century.

This one is the hour before the sport. A woman in a blue dress gathers up a yellow wrap while a servant in red crouches at her feet. Above them a rider in a plumed hat leans from the saddle and points out across the plain. Dogs wait in the dust, a horse drinks at a stone fountain, and a church spire rises from the haze on the hill behind.