Wednesday 10 December 2008

Lambert's Leap. Note 14

Not having described the criteria for what would or would not appear in these Notes and Queries, I feel a little less guilty than perhaps I should in introducing an account of the print "Lambert's Leap". This Note also allows me to write a little about the artist, engraver and publisher, Robert Pollard, who recorded this extraordinary accident. Before I begin, I must acknowledge the late N.C.(Bobby) Selway whose interest in and knowledge of the Pollard family was second-to-none, and of James Pollard in particular. His research led to the publication of three books: The Regency Road (1957), James Pollard (1965), and The Golden Age of Coaching and Sport (1972). The last two books were published by the eccentric Frank Lewis of Leigh-on-Sea, whose by-line included that he was publisher "by Appointment to the late Queen Mary." While many others have written about the Pollards, Bobby Selway was pre-eminent in describing and recording the activities of this artistic family.

The mezzotint Lambert's Leap (25 x 17.75 inches) appeared in Dominic Winter's recent sale (3 December) that included Old Master Drawings and Prints. Lambert's Leap is hardly an Old Master, but its early date (1786) allowed its inclusion. Due to its date it preceded eleven far more distinguished lots after George Stubbs (the reason for my viewing the sale): Two Tygers; Phillis, a Pointer of Lord Clermont; The Spanish Pointer; A French Fox Dog; Gimcrack (mezzo); Brood Mares (very serene); Gamekeepers and Labourers; Sweet William; Stallion and Mare; Pumpkin; and another Gimcrack (stipple, printed in reverse having been copied from the mezzo). They were published between 1788 and 1796. Jumping forward to the early twentieth century, there was also a nice group of etchings by the naturalist artist, C.F. Tunnicliffe (1901-1979).

Lambert's Leap shows a horse that has shed its rider - or more accurately, a rider who has shed his horse. The legend beneath the plate relates:

"The accident above represented happened some time ago to Mr Cuthbert Lambert of Newcastle upon Tyne, whose horse, as he was endeavouring to turn him, at full speed, across Sandiford Stone Bridge, leapt the battlement & fell about 20 feet to the bed of the Water. The Horse died in consequence of the Fall, but the young Gentleman was providentially caught in the Branches of an old Ash, where he hung by his Hands, till some Passenger got him down safely. The place has been ever since call'd Lambert's Leap, and the name engaven on the Battlement to commemorate the Fact."

More information can be gleaned from the smaller (11 x 9 inches) lithographic example illustrated in Maggs, Rare Books, website. The incident apparently occurred in the Heaton district of Newcastle on 20 September 1759. Cuthbert Lambert, described as a dashing young Customs Officer, allowed his nameless mount to leap over the parapet falling into a ravine beneath the bridge. While doing so, Lambert grabbed two convenient branches and is shown suspended as his horse, legs tucked neatly beneath its body, falls away to the river bed below. While the description on the mezzotint speaks of Lambert "endeavouring to turn his horse, at full speed", it has also been suggested that the rider was "trying to impress the young ladies of the parish out strolling." There is certainly one such, bonneted, peering anxiously over the parapet.

The author of this remarkable scene is Robert Pollard, born in nearby Newcastle just four years before the accident. As a boy, he may often have heard the story and perhaps gone to the spot and saw "Lambert's Leap" "cut in the coping stone of the battlement". The bridge has long since been replaced, but the inscription remains.

Robert Pollard came to London from Newcastle in 1774. He had been apprenticed to a silversmith but soon became a pupil of the artist Richard Wilson who taught him to draw and paint. Later, he was taught etching by Isaac Taylor before establishing himself as an engraver and publisher at 15 Braynes Row, Spa Field, Islington in 1781. Robert spent many of his early years in London engraving. The first plate published from Braynes Row was of The Dogger Bank after the marine artist Dominic Serres. Lambert's Leap comes during a fairly bare period for Robert as either an engraver or publisher. Apart from engraving two sporting dogs after Sawrey Gilpin in 1788, Robert's many subsequent works in this field were not published until the early 1800s. From 1810 until shortly before his death in 1838, Robert devoted much of his time to publishing and to teaching his younger son, James Pollard (1792-1867), engraving before the youth turned almost exclusively to painting to earn his living.

The mezzotint of Lambert's Leap was engraved by Philip Dawe (b.1750), a painter and engraver of portraits and decorative subjects. In his Artists of the English School, Samuel Redgrave describes Dawe's pictures as "common and vulgar in their humour"! Philip had two sons: George Dawe RA (1781-1829) and Henry Edward Dawe (1790-1848) who also painted and engraved. George Dawe was the better known as a history and portrait painter. He amassed a vast fortune during time spent in Russia but then lost much of it "by his greed as a money-lender, which was followed by litigation and losses" - Redgrave. The smaller lithograph, or possibly soft-ground etching, was drawn by William P. Sherlock, a little-known painter and engraver of the early to mid-nineteenth century. He was also the son of an equally obscure engraver, William Sherlock, whose father was a Dublin prizefighter.

The print at Dominic Winter's sale (estimate £150-£200), which may have appeared at Christie's earlier this year, sold for £120. The low price for this 'interesting' scene (the horse staggered a few paces before expiring) may reflect the comparatively unattractive subject. It was also trimmed to the image, further diminishing its value. However, such anecdotal records are unusual and were printed in small numbers, so need to be cherished. I hope this one found an understanding home. Who knows, it may even outlive the coping stone inscription that could end up in a rockery far from Newcastle!

Wednesday 5 November 2008

Sporting Paintings at Richard Green. Note 13.

Sadly the years seem to have passed when, each autumn, Richard Green was able to fill his Gallery at 147 New Bond Street, W1S with fine sporting paintings. Long, long ago, Ackermann, held the same type of annual exhibition, before the bankers pulled the rug from under their feet the night before their show opened! In Richard Green's exhibition of Sporting and British Paintings opening on 12 November there are fourteen sporting pictures, a number of sea- and landscapes, as well as four brilliant portraits. Few as the sporting pictures are, what is on show is of the highest quality, (bar two!). It may be that the demand for quality is the limiting factor in terms of number. However, there have been some interesting paintings for sale during the past six months, not least those that came originally from the Pitt Rivers family recently sold by Bonhams: a Wootton, a Spencer and a pair by Francis Sartoriuses (1734-1804).

In Bond Street, James Seymour's 1750 oil of the Duke of Kingston's racehorse Jolly Roger led by a mounted groom in a wooded landscape has a marvellous tranquillity about it, unlike the lives of the horse's owner, or for that matter the artist. The 'un-showiness' harks back to some of Seymour's early drawings, and perhaps to those pencilled by a Bernard Lens (there were four of them) whose authorship remains confusing. The bony bodies and angular heads for which Seymour is well known came later. This picture was part of the recent dispersal by Christie's of the late Simon Sainsbury's wide-ranging collections.

John Nost Sartorius (Note 10) is represented by a delightfulHunt in Full Cry (1812), and a pair of slightly larger (28 x 36 inches) paintings: A Hunt Breaking Cover and another Hunt in Full Cry (each 1813). The first (25 x 30 inches) reminds one of the much earlier (1781) Full Cry by the same artist and with a very similar composition, in the James Harvey British Art Sporting Exhibition in Langton Street, SW10. At various distances, the riders emerge from a lightly wooded hillside following their well-matched pack of hounds, right to left. In the distance, the wily Charlie doubles back left to right. This pleasing compositional formula allows an appreciation of distance that is often lacking in Ferneley's long friezes of hunt scurries that I feel are rather overrated. However, there is nothing overrated in the two paintings by John Ferneley in the Richard Green exhibition. They are extremely fine equestrian portraits. One is of a quiet, almost intimate, scene of the mounted Master John Marriot taking leave of his young sister outside a rose-bowered door, painted in 1832. The other is a much grander affair of Captain James Ogilvie Fairlea with his grooms and hunters - or should it be hunters and grooms? Captain Fairlea of Williamfield House, Coodham, Ayrshire was plainly a 'good egg'. Among his many attributes, he assisted the Earl of Eglinton in mounting the great, rain-soaked, Tournament in honour of Queen Victoria's accession to the throne in 1839. But he does look a little bit pleased with himself!

Continuing in chronological order of the artists' lives, there is an unnamed Master of the Royal Buckhounds flying over rails on his grey hunter by G.H. Laporte, c.1835-40; and a pretty, yet determined-looking, Lady Victoria Leveson-Gower (aged nine) on her galloping pony, by Sir Francis Grant PRA. In Note 4 I wrote of my interest in the bravura painting of A Gentleman with his Groom driving a Tandem on the Road to London, 1828, by Benjamin Herring Snr. (1806-1830). This painting was sold at Christie's in London on 23 May this year, and can now be seen again at Richard Green - no doubt with an added premium! I am no closer to discovering whether the smart young 'whip' is a member of a Somerset county Bridges family or not but, whoever he is, he definitely deserves a name to complete the story of this fine painting by the short-lived Ben Herring. This is followed by two sedate hunters by the Home Counties favourite, William Barraud, and a typical group of vignettes in one frame by W.J. Shayer. There are also two farmyard scenes by Ben Herring's nephew, J.F. Herring Jnr. that have the familiarity of the tops of biscuit tins. Are they sporting paintings?

The pair of paintings of English Pointers and English Setters by Thomas Blinks (1853-1910) tell us what a good artist he could be. In 1908, S.L. Bensusan wrote about Tommy Blinks in the obscure Windsor Magazine. The title of his article was: A Master of British Sports, and so he was during this otherwise dull period of English sporting painting. In 1968, F. Gordon Roe wrote: "thickset, rubicund, trimly bearded, Blinks brought to his marked ability as a painter a practical experience of horse-flesh and sporting life". And, back to the Windsor Magazine: "at the age of nine or ten" he "was whipper-in for a neighbouring farmer's trencher-fed pack" in Kent. Blinks painted many hunting and steeplechasing pictures but today it is his portraits of hounds and dogs that are most highly sought after, vying with those by his contemporary, John Emms. I must write about Blinks one day.

Last among the sporting pictures is Munnings's Winter Sunshine: Huntsman by a Covert. It was apparently painted in about 1913. While prolific all his life, Munnings was in top gear at this date, and it shows in this impressionist picture, in his favourite canvas size: 20 x 24 inches. Brilliantly 'lit', the wood in the background is sketched with rapid brush strokes; the horse and scarlet-coated huntsman are alert to their tasks. Munnings pulled out this wonderful small study from his studio to exhibit at the Royal Academy in 1956, three years before he died.

I mentioned four portraits at the beginning of this piece. They are by Allan Ramsay, George Romney, Angelica Kauffman RA, and Sir Thomas Lawrence PRA. The Kauffman is a small oval canvas of Theresa Parker, aged about three years. It is a little insipid, but the child's face is beautifully portrayed. The other paintings are of proud men and, by Lawrence, of a golden youth. This last, a half-length, is of the Hon. Frederick William Stewart, later 4th Marquess of Londonderry (1805-1872). Well known from both exhibitions and literature, this painting is cause enough alone to visit the exhibition.

Monday 27 October 2008

Whistlejacket & Scrub at Leeds Art Gallery. Note 12.

The current exhibition: WHISTLEJACKET & SCRUB: Large as Life, The Great Paintings of Stubbs at Leeds Art Gallery (ending on 9 November) gives us an opportunity to examine two magnificent levade-action paintings by George Stubbs. The exhibition also provides a rare chance to see the painting of Scrub (Halifax Collection) in its newly cleaned and restored condition, and to consider why the Marquess of Rockingham commissioned Stubbs to paint both horses in this haute ecole exercise.

The exhibition is accompanied by a highly informative catalogue edited by Kerry Harker that includes a fascinating account of Scrub's restoration. At the time of the publication of Judy Egerton's Catalogue Raisonne, George Stubbs, Painter, the picture of Scrub was being cleaned. Numerous layers of overpainting have been removed and while the conformation of the horse remains the same, the landscape background is softened and, although thinly painted, has a more natural colour. In her book, Mrs Egerton speculates that during cleaning evidence might come to light that the original size of the painting was probably the same as that of Whistlejacket, (both pictures painted c.1762). In the height of the painting this is proved to be the case; in the width, nearly so. What has also come to light during restoration is that the join of the two unequal-sized vertical strips of canvas used to make each picture lies on opposite sides, over the rump of the horse, avoiding a later appearing seam bisecting the head as each animal looks left or right. A similar ground colour is used in both paintings which, with other evidence, suggests that Rockingham conceived these two pictures as a pair. Although there is some contemporary evidence supporting the view that Whistlejacket was painted before Scrub, it is Mrs Egerton's view that Scrub was painted first. What remains unexplained is why Rockingham rejected the painting of Scrub. The picture was returned to the artist without any apparent ill-feeling arising between Stubbs and the Marquess. After many vicissitudes (including considerable damage), the painting was in the artist's studio sale in 1807 where it was bought by his benefactor and then executor Isabella Saltonstall for £52. 10s. (50 guineas).

Two other questions arise. Why were these pictures painted at all? And why was the levade position chosen? There is supposition, again from contemporary sources, that Whistlejacket was to have carried a portrait of George III, that is until Rockingham had a political difference with the new King. Scrub is also favoured as the Royal charger according to Osiaz Humphry, Stubbs's friend and quasi-biographer. There is no conclusive evidence either way.

Stubbs painted very few pictures of moving horses. The Grosvenor Hunt painted c.1761/62 is one such painting. This large picture (59 x 95 inches) is all action with, in the background, the presumed hunt member Mr Bell Lloyd putting his horse (too close) to jump, cat-like, a five-bar gate. The position is that of Scrub and Whistlejacket with the forelegs tucked in to avoid their rapping the top bar of the gate. Perhaps there is a little more 'coiled spring' in the hunter's hindquarters than could be sustained for a few seconds in a well-executed levade in a riding school. This painting shows Stubbs's undoubted ability, slightly stiff as it may appear to today's observer, to paint a horse in movement. What is not known is why Rockingham wished that two of his only moderately successful racehorses, then at stud, should be portrayed in this unexpected way.

Rockingham at Wentworth was a neighbour of the Duke of Portland at Welbeck (see Note 11), and must have been familiar (as probably was Stubbs) with the life-sized pictures of horses at Welbeck Abbey. Painted by an unknown British artist, and probably copied from earlier European examples, these pictures illustrated a number of equine exercise positions, including the levade. It seems perfectly possible that they gave Rockingham the idea for paintings of his own horses on a similar grand scale, with or without an intended rider.

Let me now speculate! In the past and today it is often the practice of an artist to be painting more than one picture at a time, flitting from one to another as inspiration directs him. Could not Rockingham have asked Stubbs to paint a pair of Welbeck-style horse portraits? Two canvases of the same proportions were prepared, their surfaces sized with the same yellow grounding. Both paintings progressed well, and then at some point the Marquess was bowled over by the vitality of the image of Whistlejacket, far superior to the albeit beautifully painted Scrub. He decides then and there that Stubbs should complete only the former. "Forget Scrub", he says. Blow the King and every other theory! A simplistic answer perhaps, but one that seems to fit many of the now substantiated facts.

Footnote. Among the other excellent essays in the catalogue, there is an invaluable survey of a number of racing terms: "distancing", "weight for age", "heat racing", etc., by today's great authority on racing history and collaborater in many aspects of this exhibition, David Oldrey.

Tuesday 30 September 2008

George Stubbs at Creswell Crags. Note 11.

For those interested in the paintings of George Stubbs, there is a small but jewel-like exhibition of some of the artist's oils and engravings at the Harley Gallery, Mansfield Road, Welbeck, Nottinghamshire. Nearby Creswell Crags forms the setting for four paintings and two engravings by and after Stubbs, and there are a further two superb oils relating to the 3rd Duke of Portland at Welbeck Abbey. The exhibition continues until 21 December.

The Harley Gallery has produced an excellent pamphlet comprising two Essays. The first is on Horse Portraits in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Britain; and the second: George Stubbs and Creswell Crags. They are written by Karen Hearn of Tate Britain and Stephen Daniels, Professor of Cultural Geography, Nottingham University.

This note deals primarily with my Creswell Crags, but first a brief comment on the rise of English horse portraiture from its early European origins. Among those earlier horse portraits, or more accurately portraits of some types of horses, are those commissioned by William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle, known for his passion for riding and schooling the horse. The pictures appear in a 1695 inventory as "12 horse pictures and 12 Caesars [busts]" being in the hall at Welbeck. The paintings were life-size and probably date from 1620-1630. There are five in the exhibition, some showing the horse in the rampant pose. Perhaps by using a large reproduction, it would have been of interest to compare them with Stubbs's Scrub, a bay horse belonging to the Marquess of Rockingham c.1762 (Earl of Halifax), a painting that Rockingham commissioned but then refused to accept. From this work one might believe that horse portraiture had failed to advance very much since those painted by Europeans 140 years before. The well-known Whistlejacket, in similar pose and painted only a few years later eradicates that criticism of Stubbs's ability. The essay takes us through the years to the work of John Wootton whose Warren Hill, at Newmarket c.1715 and The Bloody-Shouldered Arabian,c.1723 are in the exhibition.

Before embarking on Creswell Crags mention must also be made of two other marvellous paintings by Stubbs in the exhibition. They are the portrait group of the 3rd Duke of Portland riding out past the Riding School at Welbek Abbey, exhibited in 1767; and The 3rd Duke of Portland with his brother Lord Edward Bentinck watching a groom training a horse at a jumping bar, c.1767-68. They are large paintings of similar size, approx. 40 x 50 inches. Both are delightful, even if it is a little difficult to reconcile the figure of the slightly portly looking aristocrat (perhaps it is just his 'seat') in the first painting to the slim 33 or 34year-old Duke in the second!

It is thought that the Marquess of Rockingham of Wentworth Woodhouse, who had been employing Stubbs for some time, may have introduced the artist to his neighbour, the Duke of Portland at Welbeck Abbey. In so doing, the artist could have visited Creswell Crags in the first or second years of the 1760s.

In 1765, a little after Stubbs had started using the Crags as the setting for a number of portraits of horses, Mrs Mary Delany, amateur artist, portrait painter, author of a Flora, and a favourite of George III and his Queen, made a sketch of the ravine and outcrops, writing: "It is a little Matlock; two ranges of rocks, towering as it were in rivalship of one another, feathered with wood, embossed with ivy, diversified with caves and cliffs." There is no doubt the place made a considerable impression on Stubbs, although on surprisingly few other arists at the time. The 'Creswell Crags'paintigs in the exhibiton are:

(1) Horse devoured by a Lion, c.1762/63, exhibited in 1763. (Tate Britain).
(2) A grey hack with a groom and greyhound, Creswell Crags,c.1762. (Tate Britain).
(3) The Duke of Ancaster's Turkish horse with a Turkish groom at Creswell Crags, c.1763/64. (Private Collection).
(4) The Marquess of Rockingham's Arabian stallion held by a groom at Creswell Crags, c.1765/66. (National Museums of Scotland).

In (2) to (4) the painting of the Crags with water below is very similar. In (1) (the earliest painting), the Crags are in the distance while a shaded rocky cave provides a convenient hideout from which the lion springs onto the horse's neck. As Judy Egerton points out in a Burlington Magazine article and in her monumental George Stubbs, Painter (Yale, 2007), earlier versions of this theme in the Paul Mellon Collection and National Gallery of Victoria, Australia have "less convincing" settings (comparatively open country; but would one any more expect to find a lion in Mrs Delany's caves at Creswell Crags? Remarkably, some thousands of years before the answer would have been, Yes). The painting in the Mellon Collection, Lion attacking a Horse was apparently paid for by Rockingham in December 1762 pointing to Stubbs first visiting the Crags in that year or in early 1763. In a painting of A stallion called Romulus in the possession of the Rt. Hon. Lord Viscount Spencer, Stubbs's first exhibit at the Society of Artists in 1761 also has an idealised background of rock and water, but it requires too great a stretch of the imagination to believe this too is Creswell Crags. A painting of Mares and Foals in a craggy landscape , c.1767 (Macclesfield Collection)(not in this exhibition) is one of the finest of Stubbs's series of mares and foals pictures. Here, the artist steps back a little, perhaps to one end of the Creswell gorge showing a single rock towering to the left with cottages below and an expanse of water to the right. This is an almost identical setting (apart from some detail among the cottages, farm or mill buildings) to that given to the first of Stubbs's four paintings of Shooting. The four engravings have been lent by the British Sporting Art Trust and Plate 1, Two Gentlemen going a Shooting, 1769, allows this similarity to be seen. Also at the Harley Gallery, is a mezzotint of The Brown Horse Mask [Marske], 1771, where a cottage precariously surmounts a rocky crag.

Stubbs was obviously inspired greatly by the features and atmosphere of this small ravine, one side in Derbyshire, the other in Nottinghamshire, since for eight years (1762-1770), he used it on so many occasions as the setting for some of his more romantic paintings. And for the next 11 weeks this fascination can be explored at the Harley Gallery.

Wednesday 3 September 2008

The Sartoriuses. Note 10

Occasionally the name of an artist or, in this case, the names of three generations of artists, stick in the mind and - hey presto! - you seem to see the painters' work wherever you happen to be looking. I seem to be surrounded by the Sartoriuses. Bonhams, Knightsbridge have a forthcoming sale of Sporting and Ornithological Pictures (plus some delightfully primitive livestock paintings). There is a portrait of the racehorse Bay Malton by Francis Sartorius and a pair of Otter Hunting pictures by his grandson, John Francis Sartorius. The second immage of the pair will appeal to few except those interested in the history of field sports and the bygone custom of 'poling' or 'staffing' the otter.

The Sartorius family originally came from Nuremburg. However, John, the father of Francis Sartorius arrived in England in the early eighteenth century from Bavaria. John Sartorius painted in a naive style and little of his work is known now in England. Francis Sartorius (1734-1804) continued in the manner of his father who was also his tutor. He painted a few equestrian portraits and more of racehorses, dogs and a few cart and carriage scenes. These pictures are painted in a comparatively small scale compared with the rendering of similar subjects by John Wootton, James Seymour and Francis's near contemporary, George Stubbs. All the Sartoriuses lacked the panache and fluidity of these earlier 'masters'. However, there are many charming paintings by Francis, and nearly all provide information on the country pursuits of their time. In the Sporting Magazine of 1804 an obituary of Francis's life states that he had "married and co-habited with five successive wives". Among their children was John Nost (or Nott) Sartorius (1759-1828). J.N. Sartorius exhibited more than 100 paintings at the Free Society (where his father had also shown pictures) and at the Royal Academy. He was immensely prolific and his work was engraved and even copied repouse or etched on racing gold cups. Many of his scenes are well composed and there is little doubt that the format of his hunting and racing pictures was the examplar for Samuel and Henry Alken a generation later. This was at a time when John Francis Sartorius (c.1775-1831), one of J.N's sons, was also busy painting similar work to that of his father. Like his father, he too exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy. His portraiture of humans was not his forte! But his pictures of field sports and of dogs, shooting and a few game birds is decorative, to say the least.

My second note on this family comes from a wall-full of Sartorius paintings in what is called the Porch Bedroom at Antony House, Torpoint, Cornwall. The house now belongs to the National Trust (with good Jan Wyck and John Wootton hunting scenes), but the Sartoriuses, while on view to the public, belong to the Carew-Pole family. They were brought to Antony in the late 1920s from a Pole family house, Shute in Devon, (for some reason, now called Shute Barton by the National Trust). The majority of these paintings are by J.N. Sartorius and, most interestingly, were owned by a Sir John William de la Pole of Shute at the beginning of the nineteenth century.

A third sighting of the Sartoriuses lies in the future. The work of Francis, John Nost and John Francis Sartorius can be seen in An Exhibition of Sporting Art at James Harvey British Art, 15 Langton Street, SW10 from 9 to 25 October 2008. There are five paintings by Francis Sartorius: three of racehorses, one hunter and a lovely picture of Shooting over Pointers in a tree-dotted park with house and lake beyond. Naive? Yes, but it is an atmospheric and probably accurate depiction of a favourite country pastime. Among the contributions by J.N. Sartorius there is another Shooting over Pointers - a closer scene in a woodland setting with a gentleman and his keeper out shooting. painted forty or even fifty years after Francis completed his picture: note the changes in dress. There are a further six or more paintings of hunting and racing by J.N. Sartorius. There is just one oil by John Francis, J.N. Sartorius's son. This again is of shooting. Two gentleman set out with their spaniels to walk up whatever game they can find. This is an even more intimate scene as the two men confer and the dogs become impatient, perhaps painted at much the same period as the picture by his father.

In passing, the James Harvey exhibition includes a small and fascinating collection of ten paintings and one watercolour by Sir Alfred Munnings. For the most part these pictures give us an idea of what Munnings enjoyed painting most (including a White Canoe - see Note 9) rather than the B & B swagger equestrian portraits whose fees allowed the artist to live as he wished. There is also a small group of paintings by the talented contemporary artist, Charles Church.

Returning to the Sartoriuses,their merit as artists was not very great. However, their reporting of the manners and ways of hunting, racing and shooting and their portraiture of dogs and other animals in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries provides an invaluable and highly decorative record. And then the Alkens came along.

Saturday 2 August 2008

The White Canoe, by Sir Alfred Munnings. Note 9

While two series of paintings usually called "The White Canoe" may not strictly speaking be described as sporting pictures, their painter, Sir Alfred Munnings, was the most important sporting artist of the 20th Century.

Recently I have been trying to disentangle which painting is which of this title. In doing so, partly by chance, I have been able to speak to two of the models that Munnings used to decoratively sit for him in his later series painted between 1938 and 1953. Among both series, a few are described in the artist's three-volume autobiography: An Artist's Life; Second Burst; and The Finish. A number were exhibited at the Royal Academy but since the RA catalogues did not at the time show dimensions this of only a little help. The slim annuals, Royal Academy Illustrated, show some of the paintings but, again, rarely give sizes.

There were at least four pictures in the first series. These were painted soon after Munnings's second marriage to Violet McBride, a noted horsewoman, who quickly brought some order to the artist's previously successful but rather racketty life. All the paintings show a white Canadian canoe on the River Stour near Castle House, Dedham, their home. The smallest of the four (12 x 16 inches) that I have been able to identify is a panel showing Violet Munnings vigorously paddling herself along the tree-lined river, right to left. Another, named The River, is a less energetic scene, again right to left, of a contemplative Violet in front with a friend paddling behind her - both are hatted. Different to the two described, the composition of both the third and fourth painting is the same, but with the movement left to right. In both, Violet is in front. In one without a hat with her friend behind, paddling, hatted. In the second both are paddling and hatted. The smaller of these two paintings was exhibited at the RA in 1924, and the larger version at the International Exhibition, Pittsburgh, in the same year.

Fourteen years later Munnings returned to this theme. There are at least six versions of this essentially same scene excepting the different models whom he used, and some changes of title. The composition is now of the canoe moving (in fact firmly staked) left to right on a hot summer afternoon. In these pictures the warm colouring, dappled light and staccato brushwork of the foliage show the artist at his impressionistic best. Five versions were exhibited at the RA: 1940 (Drifting); 1944 and 1946 (The White Canoe); 1948 (September Afternoon); 1953 (The White Canoe); and repeated in 1956, September Afternoon, 1939, Version 4. In each of these paintings there is a very pretty, dark haired girl in a red silk dress holding a pink parasol. Munnings made a number of studies of her in 1938 that he used in all his subsequent pictures in this series, since she was living in France by 1939. I am most grateful to her for providing me with much of the information on which this piece is based. The second model in each of these pictures, the paddler, varies. There were two families, friends of the artist and Violet Munnings, who lived at the opposite ends of Dedham. Their offspring, with another girl from close by, furnished the young men and women (including two pairs of brother and sister) as models in these paintings - when they were not enjoying jolly lunch parties at Castle House.

Undoubtedly there are more paintings of these scenes that may come to light. For those interested in the second series, there are examples and studies of the girl with the parasol at the Munnings Museum, Castle House, Dedham, Essex that is open to the public.

Thursday 17 July 2008

Society of Equestrian Artists Exhibition, Mall Galleries. Note 8

It is some years since I last visited this annual exhibition. That currently (14 to 19 July, 2008) at the Mall Galleries, London SW1 is the 29th to be held by the Society of Equestrian Artists. For a time I sat on the selection committee, only because this allowed me a preview of the paintings and sculptures as they passed our raised or lowered hands enabling me to write a timely piece for the weekly magazine Horse and Hound. Apart from a few really good pictures by near 'professional' artists: Terrance Cuneo (for many years the Society's President); John King; Susie Whitcombe; Alison Guest; Malcolm Coward; Neil Cawthorne - in no particular order - the overall impression was not good and in some instances, ghastly. It was the last that drove away many good painters who did not want to be seen exhibiting in the same company. The sculptors were different. They were almost all female and were extremely good: Angela Connor; Gillian Parker; Judy Boyt; Tessa Pullen; Priscilla Hann among others, and quite marvellous wood carvings by Ann Baxter. This year Judy Boyt and Ann Baxter remain loyal to the Society, and the British Sporting Art Prize for the best sculpture was won by Mary Weatherby.

The standard this year was higher than I had seen previously, and only one or two painting horrors had crept through the selection. Here, in alphabetical order, like the Society's admirable catalogue, are my views on the 2008 pictures. Colin Allbrook showed three oils and two watercolours of which the landscape on canvas of Dartmoor Hunting was outstanding. Neil Cawthorne, as loyal as they come, was showing six oils paintings with much greater attention to weather and atmosphere than I remember: both Through the Mist and Homeward Bound were very fine. Robin Furness's The Warwickshire at Adminton, a gouache, while remeniscent of Lionel Edwards style, was very fine indeed with plenty of atmosphere. The colouring in Frederick Haycock's three hunting oils was refreshingly clean, and Neil McDonald's watercolour Two in Hand was neat and painterly. Roy Miller is among the professionals, but his bright and clear colours are not to my taste. However his snow scene, Racing Just Possible, was magnificent as the field disappeared in what was nearly a white-out. Barry Peckham is an old hand and his paintings of ponies, often in the New Forest, are consistently good; he is another artist who has stayed loyal to the Society over many years. The sharpness of the Scottish colouring of Peter Smith's racing pictures is almost too golden to be true and would benefit from toning down to a softer palette. Alison Wilson's Appleby Fair oils were particularly fine, particularly her Winter Afternoon study. There still seems to be group of painters of racing who feel the necessity to use heavy, strident colouring that simply does not work - all reality and no atmosphere. The avant-garde rarely comes off in this genre but Terence Gilbert's colourful Polo at Deauville and Vineta Sayer's swirls and twirls in Tally Ho were worth looking at.

The sculptures: wood, bronze, resin, soap-stone, wire, you name it, they were there, were disappointing, apart from Judy Boyt's Sebastian - Ready and Waiting, a shooting pony.

So, six years since my last visit, what was my impression? Certainly the large galleries were well filled with much worthwhile effort, but some of it contained too much effort and too little enjoyment. A few paintings one could well hang at home; but others would be uncomfortable anywhere. The general standard does seem to have improved - but I remeber writing that many yaers ago!

Tuesday 24 June 2008

A John Charlton Sketch. Note 7.

The other day there was an interesting story in the Daily Telegraph about the bed-ridden activity of a Cyril Fellowes, when aged 13. In 1902 he was laid up with a bad hip in a Harley Street clinic. To pass the time he wrote letters to a number of the "great and good" (the DT correspondent, Nick Britten's, term) requesting their autographs. Undaunted by rank or position and with the aid of addresses probably provided by his father, he wrote to such luminaries as Rudyard Kipling, Baden-Powell, W.G. Grace and Scott (embarking on Antartic fame). Perhaps less well known among Cyril's list was the sporting artist John Charlton (1849-1917). Charlton provided a lively sketch of a galloping horse's head (illustrated in the DT) above his full signature: he usually signed his drawings JC.

John Charlton was born at Bamburgh, Northumberland and while apprenticed to an iron-master, Sir Isaac Bell, he was also attending Newcastle Art School under the tuition of William Bell Scott. Coming to London he worked for a time at the South Kensington Museum, first exhibiting a painting of "Harrowing" at the Royal Academy in 1870. In 1899 he was commissioned by Queen Victoria to paint her arrival at St Paul's Cathedral for the Diamond Jubillee Service,(RA 1899). Charlton regularly exhibited animal paintings and portraits at the RA until 1904. He became a member of the Royal Society of British Artists and both the Royal Institutes of Painters in Watercolours and of Painters in Oil-Colours.

His often large scale equestrian portraits are an advance on the solemnity of Sir Francis Grant but fall short of the light and colour brio of a Sir Alfred Munnings' hunting group. Charlton's book illustrations of hunting are drawn with the knowledge of personal experience.

Many of his portraits were painted on commission and remain largely unseen in the houses of the descendants of his patrons. There are a few of his pictures in northern galleries: The Gray Art Gallery, Hartlepool (1); Laing AG, Newcastle (1); Shipley AG, Gateshead (2); and South Shields Museum (1). Once the home of the Morgan family (who became Viscounts Tredegar), Tredegar House, Newport, South Wales now belongs to Newport City Council, and here there are five paintings by Charlton. They include two hunting portraits (painted in 1884 and 1893); a portrait of the family's keeper, Hazell, and spaniels (1904); and a seated portrait of Godfrey Morgan (1831-1913) with his Skye terrier "Peeps". As a captian in the 17th Lancers Godfrey Morgan took part in the Charge of the Light Brigade in the Crimean War. Charlton also painted a retrospective picture of the 'Charge' in 1905 showing Morgan astride his horse "Sir Briggs": Both Peeps and Sir Briggs are buried in the garden of Tredegar House!

John Charlton returned north and died at Lanercost, Cumberland in November 1917.

In the DT sketch the horse's outstretched head and neck, all fire and vigour, can be identified by its bridle as being a military charger, (thank you, Sally Mitchell). Sadly, Cyril Fellowes died of blackwater fever in India, aged 25, four years before Charlton's death. His autograph book was sold at Hanson's Auctioneers, Etwall, Derbyshire on 19 June for a disappointing £440. The DT had mentioned an estimate of £5,000!.

Sunday 8 June 2008

George Morland's Pictures. Note 6

There is a small shop in Shaftesbury that cannot be described as an Antique Shop - perhaps a collectors' shop (regimental badges, postcards, a few pieces of small china and silverware) are better words but, importantly, it has three large bookcases in it. There are shelves for local history, guides, sporting books illustrated by Lionel Edwards, and of many other subjects, as well as a shelf of Art books. The last category is limited, but I discovered a slender, cloth-bound octavo volume of "George Morland's Pictures" by Ralph Richardson (1897). For all I know, it may be found quite commonly, but I had not seen it before yesterday. Since neither I nor the owner of the shop had the right change, he kindly reduced the price by one third!

George Morland (1763-1804) was a wayward genius painting what we would describe today as 'rustic scenes': carthorses in barns, sheep sheltering beneath a hedge, pigs snugly in their styes, a winter pond, and shore-scapes with wreckers and smugglers; all beautifully painted and usually in quite small scale. He was not a sporting painter in the normal sense, but painted many hunting and shooting scenes, the latter being particularly charming. By the age of ten Morland was exhibiting at the Royal Academy. In a newspaper advertisemnt of a sale to be held by "Mr Greenwood, at his Rooms in Leicester Square, this day [18 February 1791] at 12 o'Clock. A small collection of Cabinet Pictures of the Foreign and English Schools, particularly the Chef D'Oeuvre of ..... ", Morland's name heads the distinguished list of artists. Elsewhere, in a similar advertisement, George Stubbs's name lies in fifth place behind Morland's second. He lived at a fast pace, initially invigorated and later incapacitated by drink. He was prolific, for the most part to keep his creditors at bay. While in a debtors' prison from 1800 until shortly before his death, he is said to have produced 192 pictures.

Within a few years of his death no less than four authors had written their biographies of his life: William Collins in 1805; F.W. Blagdon (1806); J. Hassell (1806); and the artist's friend George Dawe RA (1807). I once had Ralph Richardson's book titled: "George Morland, Painter, London" that was published in 1895. Like many reference books that one possesses I had not read it from cover to cover. In failing to do so I was not aware of the possibility of the publication of my Shaftesbury purchase. The Preface to the latter explains that Richardson had invited the owners of paintings and prints by Morland "to communicate to me the details of their collections." He was particulalry interested in discovering the original paintings for the many prints made after Morland's work, often engraved in mezzotint by the artist's brother-in-law, William Ward (who had married Morland's sister, and brother of James Ward RA whose sister was married to Morland!). The results of this request led to the publication of "George Morland's Pictures" two years later. This 'supplement' contains over 90 pages of details of individual paintings and similarly nine pages of prints - all with the owners' names and and addresses supplied!

Times have changed, but even now I hesitate to (re)publish some items from this burglars' directory of potential swag. Sir Walter Gilbey of Elsenham Hall, Essex was a well-know early collector of sporting and other paintings and he had 24 pictures by Morland. On the other hand, like many others named, G.A. Blackburn of Northgate, Halifax had a single "Winter Scene: oak tree; farmer; young man with hay under his arm going towards three sheep, 17 x 26 inches. Signed." Some entries have a note of provenance. Mrs E. Blathwayt of Huntspill Rectory, Bridgewater owned: "Morland's Last Sketch (that of a bank and a tree). Pencil. Morland's mother gave this sketch to the grandfather of Rev. Mr Blathwayt, Rector of Huntspill, Bridgewater who purchased from Morland 'The Rutland Fencibles'". The holdings by Public Galleries are included. The Corporation Galleries of Art, Glasgow had (and hopefully still have) four of Morland's paintings. Their Superintendant, James Paton, had a painting of "Gipsies. 19 x 24 inches, unsigned and undated, that was engraved by William Ward in 1792". The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and Asiatic Society, Calcutta each reported holding a single picture by Morland. A more tenuous note shows that while visiting Prince Hohenlohe at Castle Duino, near Trieste, Princess Mary of Thurn and Taxis in her "Travels in Unknown Austria (MacMillan, 1896) mentions: "There are two pictures here that I am convinced are by Morland". But she does not describe them.

For those searching for the provenance of a sporting picture this kind of listing of Morland's work (rarely seen for other artists) is of great interest, although by no means complete due to his immense output during his short life. As well as providing glimpses of contemporary collectors' enthusiasms, this book demonstrates Morland's standing at the turn of the eighteenth century and for many years afterwards, compared to that of, say, George Stubbs - a 'ranking' now reversed.

Saturday 31 May 2008

Christie's Sporting Art Sale. Note 5

The first part of this Note refers back to Note 4 and the discussion of Lot 121 at Christie's London Sporting Art Sale held on Friday 23 May. Ben Herring's very smart painting of a tandem cocking cart on the road fetched an equally smart £82,100 (this includes the buyers premium)(estimate £40,000-£60,000). It was an exceptional painting for Ben Herring and while Sally Mitchell in her admirable Dictionary of British Equestrian Artists (published by the Antiques Collectors Club,1985; and surely ready for an update) writes that Ben's work was not of the same standard as that of his older brother, J.F. Herring Snr., in this case it came quite close. Certainly two people appreciated its quality and were prepared to go well above the estimate. The name of the 'whip' remains a mystery for the moment. The other pictures mentioned previously were the pair of Ascot paintings by Charles Cooper Henderson (Lot 59) which made a comparatively disappointing £42,500 (estimate £40,000-£60,000). The Alfred Munnings pictures had mixed fortunes with one of the hunting paintings failing to sell and the artist's study of Unsaddling at Epsom going for £300,500 which, without the buyer's premium, fell just below the lower estimate.

The evening before, the British Sporting Art Trust held a private view of the Sale combined with a reception and auction of promises. Over 200 members and their friends attended bidding for lots as diverse as a £2,500 voucher for a Stewart Parvin couture dress to two Members' Seats on the Centre Court at Wimbledon for this year's Men's Final. With such generous donors and enthusiastic buyers (and with previous donations) the 20 or so lots raised £30,000 for the Trust during an entertaining evening.

Tuesday 20 May 2008

Christie's Sporting Art Sale 23 May 08. Note 4.

Christie's London Sporting Art Sale on Friday 23 May contains many good sporting paintings. Munnings' is well represented with, among other pictures, one lovely Exmoor hunting scene, as is the recently fashionable John Emms. The latter's painting of hounds in kennel: Waiting for the Hunt is particulalry fine, although some of this artist's other efforts in the sale are less exciting. However, the reason for writing here is to explore a connection between two particular Lots. Lot 59 is a magnificent pair of paintings by Charles Cooper Henderson (1803-1877) of panoramic scenes: Going to Ascot Races and Returning from Ascot Races [1839] (Estimate £40,000-60,000). They were around 11 years ago and are now making a second appearance, but none the worse for that. In the 'coaching' world there is a feeling that due to their quality they should be purchased by a British gallery or museum. The second Lot is 121: A Tandem on the road to London, dated 1828, by Benjamin Herring Snr (1806-1830); the short-lived younger brother of the better known J.F. Herring Snr, also well represented in the sale.

As is now becoming apparent, Cooper Henderson's paintings of coaches and carriages often include portraits. In Returning from Ascot, the Earl of Chesterfield drives his own 'drag' and the artist stands in a landau in which are portrayed his parents, John and Georgiana Henderson, both artists in the own right. While Cooper Henderson was still an amateur he drew a very fine and amusing lithograph titled The Park, "T'was post meridian half past four". This large, rare print is a view of those congregating by the statue of Achilles near to today's Hyde Park Corner. It was published in 1827 or 1828. Among a number of portraits are those of Fitzroy Stanhope, Lord Algernon St Maur, Mr S.W. Fores, the print publisher, a Colonel Bridges, and the artist. This little group, including Henderson, were noted amateur carriage drivers and apparently assembled each afternoon during the season to pass comment on the vehicles that surrounded them; they later called themselves The Critics.

Herring's painting is an extremely polished picture of a type of tandem gig known as a cocking cart. The immaculate gentleman driver, usually named a Whip, controls a pair well-matched bay horses from his high seat, a groom behind him, set in an open road landscape. The provenance for this painting is that it came through a Colonel Bridges [1821-1897] to his son H.C.B.Bridges [1877-?1934], but the present vendor does not know the origin of the painting before that. The notes to the Lot include the remark that the assured young man driving the tandem "may be a member of the Bridges family, who had an estate at Highfield near Southampton." Although the crest painted on the side of the cocking cart and those embellishing the horses' harness are a little indistinct, they could well be the coronet and profile moor's head used by a widespread Bridges family. However, by the dates, Henderson's Colonel Bridges is plainly not the same person as the Colonel Bridges of Highfield (and also of Overton, Hants).

Another clue lies on the milestone in Herring's painting: "CXV miles from London." The 115 miles will not be as the crow flies, but a good idea of distances can be gleaned from Pattison's Roads. This volume, first published in 1828 and running to more than 18 editions, gives the distances to every town, village and turnpike gate out of London on the major coach roads. Southampton is 77 miles, and Overton much less! In fact this gazetteer provides more than 50 possible places where the picture might have been painted, presumably close to the subject portrait's home. The volume also names the more important houses and their owners near each coach stop or 'stage'. A George Bridges Esq lived at Astley Lodge, Tog Hill, near Bath (106miles from London), and there is a memorial in the church at Keynsham, Bristol (114 miles) to a Sir Thomas Bridges. For want of a better idea, my money therefore goes on a 'Somerset' Bridges who had himself portrayed on the London road by Benjamin Herring in his recently built and very smart gig, perhaps on his way to Hyde Park Corner?

Friday 25 April 2008

London Original Print Fair. Note 3

Yesterday I went to see the London Original Print Fair at the back of the Royal Academy in Burlington Gardens. I had no great expectations of finding many sporting works, but the visit proved to be well worthwhile.



Hurrying past the mainly large and garish contemporary work on the ground floor, I climbed the stairs in search of more traditional engravings, and found a few of interest. The set of four Shooting engravings undertaken by the master craftsman William Woollet after paintings by George Stubbs are well known. Condition can be a problem since such prints have often endured more than 200 years hanging in damp and drafty passages - they were engraved between 1769 and 1771. I suspect I saw these prints at auction in Cirencester twelve months ago. Their condition was better than often found for engravings of their age, but not that marvellous. They had now been carefully cleaned and remained in their early frames. The hammer price for the set in the country barely covered the cost of a single plate in Burlington Gardens. That is how it goes, but the London price was fair in the circumstances. Each image has a rather lugubrious verse beneath it telling the story of the early morning start of the gentlemen setting out to the time of refreshment and counting their bag. The last line of the verse on Plate 1st. might gladden the heart of many an 'anti' today. The penultimate line refers to the dogs watching their masters preparing; the last runs: "Viewing each Master charge [load] the Murdering Gun"!



Among the many dealers' stands and hundreds if not thousands of prints, some lithographs by Robert Bevan (1865-1925) were the highlight for me. Some might quibble at describing Bevan as a sporting artist but before settling in London and becoming a founder member of the Camden Town Group he was hunting with Joseph Crawhall in Tangiers and later on Exmoor. His angular drawing of less than Thoroughbreds (Stella Walker, the late doyenne of sporting art writing, described his horses as being "of plebeian antecedents") and their attendants, at horse sales and in cab yards, are of remarkably animated animals and people. But it is his brilliant technique with the pencil, his tonal harmony and the freshness of each print that always strikes the eye and makes on want buy one - but then you could equally afford the whole set of four Stubbs' engravings for the same price! By coincidence I found on my return to Wiltshire that a friend had sent me a flyer for the recently published (Unicorn Press) Robert Bevan, from Gaugin to Camden Town, by Frances Stanlake. With 180 illustrations (125 in colour), I think I will have to be content with this book in place of an original print.

Monday 21 April 2008

The Bramshill Hunt. Note 2

Many sporting pictures tell an obvious story. Others, of which portraits form the majority are seemingly bland records. However, there may be more than meets the eye in their painting. A picture of Sir John Cope's, or The Bramshill Hunt, is one in the latter category. It was painted (and copied) by Edmund Havell (1819-1898), a member of a large family of artists headed by the watercolourist William Havell (1782-1857). Edmund Havell painted the Bramshill Hunt for Sir John Cope in 1837 when the artist was just eighteen years old. A version of this scene is about 37 x 58 inches in size and shows two mounted huntsmen, a groom holding a third horse, and three top-hatted gentlemen in full hunting rig standing on the broad steps of the entrance to Bramshill house, Hampshire. The men are said to be Sir John Cope, Mr Thomas Peers Williams and Captain Edward Gordon RN. Thirteen hounds are portrayed, and like the humans, seem very posed and static. When the painting was sold in New York in 1986 it was given a provenance as being in Lord Brocket's sale in 1952. This was not so.

The Brockett painting is 86 x 110 inches, and is described in an 1883 inventory of pictures at Bramshill as the: "Meet of Sir John Cope's Hounds at Bramshill, with a view of the front of the house, and portraits of Sir John Cope Bart., T. Peers Williams Esq., Gerrard Blisson Wharton Esq., and (sitting in a chair) John Warde, of Squerries [Kent] Esq. The servants, horses and hounds are all portraits, 1837."

The composition in the centre of each painting is the same, but the larger picture has had canvas added above and to the left (another huntsman and seven more gambolling hounds), and to the right (the seated John Warde and one more lively hound). Captain Edward Gordon has been replaced by Gerrard Wharton.

I am very grateful to a family relation in Scotland who sent me a transcript of a letter written by Edmund Havell sixty years after painting this picture, sent to Sir Anthony Cope in 1897. This explains the differences between the two pictures described:

"He [Sir John Cope] requested me to paint a group of himself, some friends, and horses, and hounds, Huntsman, 'Whips', Studgroom, at the front door of that beautiful piece of Architecture. When the picture was finished he was incensed to find the top of the screen [of the facade of the doorway], and the three crowns thereon, were not introduced. Explanations were to no avail, nothing could do but that the screen and crowns be shown. So the only alternative was to enlarge the picture, originally it was about 40 x 50 inches. It was enlarged to its prsent size. The architecture added and also another friend introduced, a Mr James [sic] Ward (sitting in a chair in the foreground). The enlarging business was clumsily done, and I fear the 'join' shows in an unsightly manner. I think I dated the picture 1838 [in fact, 1837]. ........................................... When I painted the big picture I was an uneducated artist 18 years of age, and I know that the picture as a work of art, is only too dreadful."

I believe Havell must have painted the smaller picture (copying his original composition) for one of the three gentlemen standing on the steps - perhaps Captain Gordon or Gerrard Wharton. He also painted another view of the Bramshill Hunt, this time in the park with the house in the background. This painting was commissioned by Peers Williams, with Captain Gordon re-appearing in place of Wharton.

Some years ago I was given the opportunity to see the large picture, decribed by its owner as being in a sad state - as foreseen by Havell. Unfortunately I did not take up the offer then. Recently I bought a near contemporary pencilled 'key' for this painting. It is a copy, and the name of its author has been half-scrubbed off its back. Sadly I have now lost contact with the present owner of the large 'Bramshill Hunt', but would happily give my key for an opportunity to see the painting that has given me so much interest.

Thursday 17 April 2008

Sporting Art. Note 1

This is the first of occasional Sporting Art Notes (Note 1) blog, and therefore experimental. Apart from what I have written in my profile, one of the purposes of future blogs is to keep in touch with anybody interested in sporting painting, prints or artists (mainly British). There will be questions, comments and the dissemination of unpublished material - and I hope some feedback. The final direction remains to be seen. A few with similar interests may recognize the writer, but I would prefer to keep it impersonal.

Have just attended a two-day meeting arranged by the British Sporting Art Trust near Matlock, Derbyshire. This was orientated towards carriage and coaches, their painters and drivers (whip, is the correct term, I am told). The first afternoon comprised four short talks on the artists James Pollard, Charles Cooper Henderson and Lynwood Palmer (th most prominent and successful of 'coaching artists'), and on the history of carriages and coaching in Ireland. There was also a short quiz on a number of coaching artifacts ranging from 18th C. bits and bridles to copper footwarmers: the winner scored 17 out of 20 which was good going. In the evening there was a dinner followed by an entertaining description of the work of the Royal Mews by the recently retired head coachman. The following day we visited the fascinating Red House Stables Carriage Museum at Darley Dale followed by a coach ride to Chatsworth. The weather was kind and the two days very enjoyable. For future sporting art visits cross-reference to the British Sporting Art Trust website.

I hope it will be possible to see the restored painting of what appeared to be a roan horse (perhaps that was just the stained varnish) by George Stubbs recently sold for a modest £44,000, due to its sad condition. Dated 1786, this was quite an early work. Given time, restorers can work wonders, but I hope it does not become too shining bright!