ORIGINAL 19TH CENTURY AQUATINT ENGRAVING OF A HORSE.

St. Patrick, the Winner of the Great St. Leger, at Doncaster, 1820.

Publisher: London, S & J Fuller, at their Sporting Gallery, n.d. (c. 1825)

About this Item

Image is 31.5 cm x 41 cm . 38,5 cm x 52 cm within indent. 45 cm x 53 cm is the sheet size. Aquatint is loose and not stuck down. Beautifully hand coloured with exquisite detail in horse and jockey. Very slight wear to background in sky, hardly noticeable and not affecting the central image. Print is clean and without foxing, marks, or tears. In a solid wooden frame with brass corners. I cannot send this print in the glass in order to protect the valuable aquatint, and can send in frame within South Africa.  This magnificent portrait of St. Patrick, Sir E. Smith's celebrated racehorse who won the Great St. Leger Stakes in 1820, is considered one of Herring's most accomplished sporting portraits. Herring is an outstanding and imaginative artist who at an early age showed an aptitude for handling both riding whip and pencil. At a young age, fate took Herring to the Doncaster races where he saw the Duke of Hamilton's horse, William, win the St. Leger. The sight inspired him to attempt the art of animal-painting, in which he subsequently excelled. In addition to being a successful horse painter, Herring made his livelihood as a coachman, and for some time drove the Highflyer coach between London and York. When eventually he retired as a coachman he immediately obtained numerous commissions and was able to devote himself entirely to his art. Herring had no education in art until he definitely set up as an artist, when he worked for a short time in the studio of Abraham Cooper, R.A. He painted an immense number of racing, coaching, and other sporting subjects, many of which were published by the sporting printsellers and the sporting magazines. He was a frequent exhibitor at the Royal Academy and the Society of British Artists; he was elected a member of the latter society in 1841. While in later life he painted a number of subject-pictures, it was as a portrait-painter of racehorses that Herring earned his fame, and no great breeder or owner of racehorses is without some treasured production of Herring's brush. In 1825 The Doncaster Gazette commissioned Herring to paint a series of portraits of the winners of the St. Leger Stakes between 1815 and 1824. Aquatinted by the renowned engraver Thomas Sutherland, the series is considered to be Herring's most accomplished work. Seller Inventory # 80212