Lot 91: John Frederick Herring, Snr. (British, 1795-1865) A brindle Greyhound bitch in a landscape 18 x 24 in. (45.6 x 61 cm.)

A brindle Greyhound bitch in a landscape
signed and dated 'J.F.Herring/1820' (lower right)
oil on panel
18 x 24 in. (45.6 x 61 cm.)

PROVENANCE:
with Spink, London;
sale, Sotheby's, London, 19 April 1997;
Private Collection, UK

This is Herring's earliest recorded portrait of a Greyhound, painted while he was living in Doncaster. He had exhibited his first painting at the Royal Academy two years earlier, in 1818, and was beginning to make a name for himself among the sporting fraternity in the north of England. In 1822 'The Annals of Sporting' reported that he had 'executed in the finest style of excellence, portraits of animals for the Hon. E. Petre, the Duke of Portland, Lord Bentinck, the Earl of Surrey, the Marquis (sic) of Townsend, the Duke of Newcastle, the Duke of Leinster, Lord Middleton, Sir George Sitwell and many others'.

The identity of the bitch is not known but brindled Greyhounds were quite rare at this period and she could well be the bitch owned by the coursing enthusiast George L. Fox, a member of the Malton Coursing Club, whose brindle bitch 'Whimsey' beat Lord Rivers's black dog 'Rector' in a match of the First Class at the Newmarket November meeting 1817, at Chippenham Field on Friday, December 3rd. In a report of this meeting in the Sporting magazine, it mentions that 'Mr George Fox bought some very admirable Greyhounds from the north of England, but which were not so entirely successful as might have been expected'. This brindle bitch was one of the exceptions.