Lot 9: Thomas Butler (fl.c.1750-1759)

The Godolphin Arabian
signed 'Tho's Butler/Pall Mall London' (lower left) and inscribed 'The Godolphin Arabian' (upper centre) 'ESTEEM'D/one of the best/Foreign Horses/ever brought/into England; Appearing so/both from the/Country he came/from, and from/the Performance/of his Posterity./They being Excel'nt/both as Racers/and Stallions,/and Hitting/with most other/Pedigrees, and/mending the/Imperfections/of their Shape.' (left) 'He was the Sire/among others of ye/following Horses.&c./Lath, Cade, Dismal,/Janus, Blank, Slug,/Babram, Bajazet,/Regulus/Dormouse, Sultan,/Whitenose, Tarquin,/Infant, Godolphin,/Skew-ball, Entrance,/Whittington, Amelia,/Buffcoat, Blosom,St.R:/Gores Dun Mare.&c./He is allow'd to have/refresh'd ye English/Blood more than any/foreign Horse ever yet/Imported.he Died at/Hogmagog [sic] Dec'r.753 Aged 32.' (right)
oil on canvas
32 x 49 in. (84 x 124.5 cm.)

A sporting club in the Channel Islands.

The Godolphin Arabian was imported to England in 1730 to improve the quality of English racing stock, adding Arab speed to English stamina. The youngest of the three famous 'Pillars of the Stud Book' from which all modern racing thoroughbreds descend, the Godolphin sired more foals than either the Byerley Turk or the Darley Arabian.

The Godolphin was a dark bay, foaled in 1724, and imported from France in 1730 by Edward 'Neddy' Coke of Longford Hall, Derbyshire. The horse's stable name was Sham or Shami, and it has been suggested he was one of four Arabs given to King Louis XV in 1730 by the Bey of Tunis. He certainly fits the description by the Vicomte de Marly of one of these horses, subsequently sold to England: 'The horse was called Shami, a bay-brown with reddish mottles and a very little white on the hind feet, of beautiful conformation exquisitely proportioned with large hocks well let down, with legs of iron and unequalled lightness of forehand - a horse of incomparable beauty whose only flaw was being headstrong' (quoted in Lady Wentworth, Thoroughbred Racing Stock, 1938, pp. 222-3).

The Godolphin Arabian was painted by John Wootton in 1731, suggesting his early fame on arrival in England, and portraits of the Godolphin continued to be popular throughout the eighteenth century. Thomas Butler (fl.1750-1759) stated in his advertisements that he and his assistants would paint 'Horses, dogs, living and dead game, views of hunting etc., in order to compose sporting pieces for curious furniture in a more elegant and newer taste than has been yet' (quoted in Sally Mitchell, The Dictionary of British Equestrian Artists, 1985, p. 142).

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