The history of this work is very mysterious. Artists for the first time had the opportunity to study it only in 1850, when it was donated to the Oxford Museum of Eshmolin. On the back of the “Night Hunt” there was a 18th century decal with an Italian text written from the ‘hand, from which it followed that the work belonged to the brush of Benozzo Gozzoli, a painter who belonged to the next generation of Florentine masters after Uccello. Only in 1898 the historians of art agreed that the painting still should be attributed to the brush Uccello.
Nowadays it is considered one of the late works of the artist, written about the same time as part of the altar image from the Church of the Holy Spirit in Urbino. About the history of its creation, and could not find anything, despite all the efforts of researchers. The plot of the picture is non-trivial. Renaissance artists often depicted hunting scenes – but always in the background, as one of the components of the background landscape. Hunting as such has never become an independent plot of the picture before Uccello.
Some art historians suggest that this work of the master illustrates a certain literary work of that time. This theory looks plausible, but nothing has been confirmed yet. The “dark” origin of the picture, however, does not detract from its artistic merits and originality of the author’s design.
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