James Seymour

FRONTISPIECE

James Seymour 1701-1752 Richard Wills with contributions by David Oldrey and Tim Cox

pallas

athene

FRONTISPIECE

James Seymour 1701-1752 Richard Wills with contributions by David Oldrey and Tim Cox

pallas

athene

contents List of Subscribers 7

Acknowledgements 12

Introduction 17 1. Father and Son 25 2. Sink or Swim – Seymour at a turning point 47 3. Seymour and his Contemporaries 69 4. Seymour and Newmarket 75 5. Seymour and his Patrons 83 6. Racing at Newmarket by David Oldrey and Tim Cox 93 Paintings 113 Drawings 297 Further unseen works attributed to James Seymour 490

Chronological table of 18th-century sporting artists during Seymour’s lifetime 491

Racehorses, owners and dates 1705–1755, and index of pictures related to them 492 Owners’ colours, early 18th century 494 Bibliography

Imprints and dates of racing calendars 497 Texts referred to and further reading 497 Notes to introductory chapters 502

Illustrations not by James Seymour in introductory chapters 507

contents List of Subscribers 7

Acknowledgements 12

Introduction 17 1. Father and Son 25 2. Sink or Swim – Seymour at a turning point 47 3. Seymour and his Contemporaries 69 4. Seymour and Newmarket 75 5. Seymour and his Patrons 83 6. Racing at Newmarket by David Oldrey and Tim Cox 93 Paintings 113 Drawings 297 Further unseen works attributed to James Seymour 490

Chronological table of 18th-century sporting artists during Seymour’s lifetime 491

Racehorses, owners and dates 1705–1755, and index of pictures related to them 492 Owners’ colours, early 18th century 494 Bibliography

Imprints and dates of racing calendars 497 Texts referred to and further reading 497 Notes to introductory chapters 502

Illustrations not by James Seymour in introductory chapters 507

LIST OF SUBSCRIBERS

Douglas Aitken Ross Alberto Kate Barker William Barlow Peter Baxendale Roly Beazley The Duke of Bedford Andrew Bengough Jonathan Benson Peregrine Bertie Charlie Birtles Alexander and Jane Boswell Andrew and Vicky Bracey Jonathan Brankin-Frisby Dick Bronks Jill Buch Peter Bullock Professor C. B. Bunker Humphrey Butler The Cassir Family Arabella Cecil David Cecil John Chatfeild-Roberts

Chris von Christierson Christie’s Edward and Tamsin Clive Coates and Seely The Viscount Colville Richard Corfield Alan Cowie The Viscount Cranborne Georgina van Cutsem The Lord Daresbury Dr and Mrs Christopher Davenport Jones Michael Dawson The Duke of Devonshire Simon C. Dickinson Ltd Mike Donegan Annabel Drabble Hattie Drummond James and Laura Duckworth-Chad William Duff Gordon Lady Dulverton Lady Louise Eadie Huw Evans-Bevan

LIST OF SUBSCRIBERS

Douglas Aitken Ross Alberto Kate Barker William Barlow Peter Baxendale Roly Beazley The Duke of Bedford Andrew Bengough Jonathan Benson Peregrine Bertie Charlie Birtles Alexander and Jane Boswell Andrew and Vicky Bracey Jonathan Brankin-Frisby Dick Bronks Jill Buch Peter Bullock Professor C. B. Bunker Humphrey Butler The Cassir Family Arabella Cecil David Cecil John Chatfeild-Roberts

Chris von Christierson Christie’s Edward and Tamsin Clive Coates and Seely The Viscount Colville Richard Corfield Alan Cowie The Viscount Cranborne Georgina van Cutsem The Lord Daresbury Dr and Mrs Christopher Davenport Jones Michael Dawson The Duke of Devonshire Simon C. Dickinson Ltd Mike Donegan Annabel Drabble Hattie Drummond James and Laura Duckworth-Chad William Duff Gordon Lady Dulverton Lady Louise Eadie Huw Evans-Bevan

INTRODUCTION James Seymour and Arthur Devis are the only two true British artists.

They were influenced by nobody else.

Professor Sir Ellis Waterhouse in discussion with Bill Drummond

J

ames Seymour and his father, Colonel James Seamer, are mentioned intermittently

by George Vertue (1683–1756), engraver, antiquary, and diarist, in his now valuable series of notebooks containing observations on British art in the first half of the 18th century. This contemporary commentary is important because it established Seymour’s poor reputation as dissolute and a spendthrift despite his genius for drawing horses, which was then more widely publicised when Horace Walpole (1717–1797) purchased the notebooks and published them in his Anecdotes of Painting in England between 1762 and 1771.

George Vertue noted: Jimmy Seymor ... from his infancy had a genius to drawing of Horses—this he pursued with great Spirit. Set out with all sorts of modish extravagances. The darling of his Father run thro some thousands—livd gay high and loosely—horse racing gameing women &c. country houses.

Never studied enough to colour or paint well. But his necessityes—obliged him to work or to starve.

Thus his time passd the latter part of his life in

baseness and want of all necessaries. And dyed in Town in the lowest of circumstances & in debt— Southwark—June 1752 aged about or under 50.

There is little primary source material to refute this.

Sir Walter Gilbey and Walter Shaw Sparrow offered further insights a hundred years ago and Judy Egerton, Professor Sir Ellis Waterhouse, and Sir Oliver Millar more recently. There have been no books dedicated specifically to Seymour’s life or works in the past 250 years, a gap I hope this book will redress. Whilst Seymour in his relatively short 30-year career has been appreciated, the significance of his work, particularly in relation to racing at Newmarket, has not been fully recognised, let alone understood. In terms of accessibility, two important exhibitions of Seymour’s drawings (1936 and 1978) and two significant collections created in the last century have drawn attention to his work and made it the focus of more serious collecting.

The exhibition of drawings in 1936 was a result of the premature death of the 6th Earl of Warwick, aged 46, in 1928. To settle his estate, his Trustees offered a number of works of art for sale at Sotheby’s, including a folio of

Opposite: flying childers being led by a groom in the Devonshire livery, walking left (d190, approximately actual size)

17 |

INTRODUCTION James Seymour and Arthur Devis are the only two true British artists.

They were influenced by nobody else.

Professor Sir Ellis Waterhouse in discussion with Bill Drummond

J

ames Seymour and his father, Colonel James Seamer, are mentioned intermittently

by George Vertue (1683–1756), engraver, antiquary, and diarist, in his now valuable series of notebooks containing observations on British art in the first half of the 18th century. This contemporary commentary is important because it established Seymour’s poor reputation as dissolute and a spendthrift despite his genius for drawing horses, which was then more widely publicised when Horace Walpole (1717–1797) purchased the notebooks and published them in his Anecdotes of Painting in England between 1762 and 1771.

George Vertue noted: Jimmy Seymor ... from his infancy had a genius to drawing of Horses—this he pursued with great Spirit. Set out with all sorts of modish extravagances. The darling of his Father run thro some thousands—livd gay high and loosely—horse racing gameing women &c. country houses.

Never studied enough to colour or paint well. But his necessityes—obliged him to work or to starve.

Thus his time passd the latter part of his life in

baseness and want of all necessaries. And dyed in Town in the lowest of circumstances & in debt— Southwark—June 1752 aged about or under 50.

There is little primary source material to refute this.

Sir Walter Gilbey and Walter Shaw Sparrow offered further insights a hundred years ago and Judy Egerton, Professor Sir Ellis Waterhouse, and Sir Oliver Millar more recently. There have been no books dedicated specifically to Seymour’s life or works in the past 250 years, a gap I hope this book will redress. Whilst Seymour in his relatively short 30-year career has been appreciated, the significance of his work, particularly in relation to racing at Newmarket, has not been fully recognised, let alone understood. In terms of accessibility, two important exhibitions of Seymour’s drawings (1936 and 1978) and two significant collections created in the last century have drawn attention to his work and made it the focus of more serious collecting.

The exhibition of drawings in 1936 was a result of the premature death of the 6th Earl of Warwick, aged 46, in 1928. To settle his estate, his Trustees offered a number of works of art for sale at Sotheby’s, including a folio of

Opposite: flying childers being led by a groom in the Devonshire livery, walking left (d190, approximately actual size)

17 |

james seymour 197 drawings, on 17th June 1936. This was purchased by Spink & Son who that winter mounted a selling exhibition Drawings by James Seymour, which ran from 30th October to 27th November 1936.The collection was believed by Walter Shaw Sparrow to have been formed by George, 2nd Earl of Warwick (1746-1816) and his brother Charles Greville (1749-1809) and thus to have been at Warwick Castle since the late 18th century.

The leading authority on sporting art, Shaw Sparrow (1862–1940) had published the two-volume British Sporting Artists in 1922, and written extensively in sporting periodicals. His books were natural successors to Sir Walter Gilbey’s Animal Painters published in 1900. Sir Walter Gilbey Bt (1831–1914) was an interesting self-made man who, aged only 22, had volunteered for civilian service in the Dardanelles at the outbreak of the Crimean War. He returned home and in 1857 he and his brother Alfred founded W. & A. Gilbey, a wine and spirits business that grew exponentially through the last quarter of the 19th century; Gilbey’s Gin can still be purchased today. Sir Walter’s successful management of his business enabled him to acquire the Essex estate of Elsenham Hall and to concentrate on his growing interests in agriculture and horse breeding.

His extensive library and collection of paintings and engravings reflected his love of the country and the horse. Between 1900 and 1907 he wrote two books on horses, two books on carriages, Animal Painters, and a book on the artist George Morland, whom he held in high esteem.

Over Gilbey’s lifetime he compiled one of the most important British sporting art collections ever assembled. After his death, in 1910, the contents of his London residence, Cambridge House in Regents Park, and some his collection at Elsenham Hall were dispersed by Christie’s on 12th, 14th, and 15th March 1910. In 1915 the 18 |

introduction contents of Elsenham Hall were also sold by Christie’s.

The 1910 sale catalogue reads like a roll call of British sporting art as it contained fourteen paintings by Henry Alken and ten by Samuel Alken, six by Abraham Cooper, two by John Ferneley, eleven by John Frederick Herring Snr, twelve Ben Marshalls, twenty-five George Morlands, five Phillip Reinagles, seventeen works from the Sartorius family, thirty-seven by George Stubbs, (including Haymakers and Reapers, now both Tate) and Gimcrack, five by John Wootton, seven by Sawrey Gilpin, three each by James Pollard, Stephen Elmer, and Edmund Bristow, two each by Charles Cooper Henderson, Thomas Gooch, Jacques Laurent Agasse, James Barenger, Henry Bernard Chalon, and works by John Boultbee, John Dalby, George Garrard, Edgar Hunt, Edwin Landseer, William Shayer, Peter Tillemans, Charles Towne, and James Ward and others. Amongst all these were also eleven paintings by Seymour.

The 1936 Spink exhibition catalogue was essentially a list of the drawings with a few biographical notes on the racehorses and no images, compiled by Charles Matthew Prior (author of The History of the Racing Calendar and The Stud-Book, 1926), Walter Shaw Sparrow and Messrs Weatherby’s. In the introduction to the 1936 catalogue Captain Jack Spink concluded: The present exhibition is the first to be devoted solely to his drawings, and may be the means of calling attention to the quality of Seymour’s pen and pencil and of re-establishing the contemporary claim that he was unequalled in drawing a horse.

Using the resource of the Witt Library, it has been possible to link images of Seymour’s drawings to some of the entries in the catalogue. This mission to identify Seymour’s drawings became a great deal easier with the

help of Karen Hladik and Tim Cox who unearthed a treasure trove of images in America. Fairfax Harrison, a lawyer from Fauquier County, Virginia compiled notes concerning thoroughbred horses for a planned publication, ‘Portraits of English Turf Horses before [George] Stubbs’. He died in 1938 before he could complete the project, and in December 1959 his manuscript, research files on artists, collectors and printers of horse images, and correspondence, known as the Fairfax Harrison Papers 1928-1945, were given to The Virginia Historical Society. He had recorded an image of nearly every James Seymour drawing in the Spink exhibition.

After Shaw Sparrow and Gilbey started the focus on sporting painting in the first quarter of the 20th century, there followed a gap until the art historian Basil Taylor, while working on the exhibition Sport and the Horse, held at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in 1960, met Paul Mellon and began to advise him on his collecting.

Paul Mellon (1907–1999) was probably the greatest collector of his generation and certainly in British art. He gave his collection to the Paul Mellon Center at Yale and to the Museum of Fine Art in Richmond, Virginia, including over 110 oils and drawings by Seymour.

In this country there are significant holdings of Seymour’s works in the British Museum, Tate and the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. There are further representative works in the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Ashmolean, and Leeds City Art Gallery. Recently another private collection of great significance has been amassed and is still growing.

Mellon’s collection of British sporting art had been catalogued by the great scholar of British art and foremost specialist in George Stubbs, Judy Egerton (1928–2012), together with Dudley Snelgrove. Egerton helped to raise awareness of Seymour’s work, and in 1978 collaborated with Bill Drummond on the second

significant exhibition of James Seymour’s drawings in this country, The Ingenious Mr Seymour: James Seymour, 1702–1752, held in the Covent Garden Gallery, London, which comprised some 54 drawings.

During the period 1960 to 1990 Professor Sir Ellis Waterhouse, Sir Oliver Millar and Judy Egerton all contributed to our knowledge of James Seymour. Waterhouse (1905–1985), an art historian specialising in British art, one time Director of the National Gallery of Scotland and the Barber Institute of Fine Arts, was the first Director of the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art. In 1981 he published his Dictionary of British 18th-Century Painters, in which he assessed Seymour thus: Horse Painter. Born London c. 1702, died there 30 January 1752. Son of a banker and one of the early rivals to Wootton but with less variety of style.

He subscribed to the St. Martins Lane Academy 1720. He lived so extravagantly at Newmarket that he caused his father, a wealthy banker, to die bankrupt in 1739. His most ambitious work is A kill in the Ashdown Forest, 1743 (Tate).

His perfunctory assessment of Seymour is typical, and it is also unsurprising in its repetition of Vertue’s characterisation. Seymour, compared to other artists, got off lightly. Waterhouse dismissed four generations of the Sartorius family (the eldest, John, being a minor rival to Seymour) as ‘Rather dreary and very prolific horse and sporting painters, whose exhibition records are impossible to sort out.’ Thomas Spencer, Seymour’s one-time collaborative pupil gets even shorter shrift, ‘Sporting painter; pupil of Seymour’. Like many other historians of this period, Waterhouse felt sporting art was of limited interest and quality. In his important publication Painting in Britain of 1953, Sir Ellis stated 19 |

james seymour 197 drawings, on 17th June 1936. This was purchased by Spink & Son who that winter mounted a selling exhibition Drawings by James Seymour, which ran from 30th October to 27th November 1936.The collection was believed by Walter Shaw Sparrow to have been formed by George, 2nd Earl of Warwick (1746-1816) and his brother Charles Greville (1749-1809) and thus to have been at Warwick Castle since the late 18th century.

The leading authority on sporting art, Shaw Sparrow (1862–1940) had published the two-volume British Sporting Artists in 1922, and written extensively in sporting periodicals. His books were natural successors to Sir Walter Gilbey’s Animal Painters published in 1900. Sir Walter Gilbey Bt (1831–1914) was an interesting self-made man who, aged only 22, had volunteered for civilian service in the Dardanelles at the outbreak of the Crimean War. He returned home and in 1857 he and his brother Alfred founded W. & A. Gilbey, a wine and spirits business that grew exponentially through the last quarter of the 19th century; Gilbey’s Gin can still be purchased today. Sir Walter’s successful management of his business enabled him to acquire the Essex estate of Elsenham Hall and to concentrate on his growing interests in agriculture and horse breeding.

His extensive library and collection of paintings and engravings reflected his love of the country and the horse. Between 1900 and 1907 he wrote two books on horses, two books on carriages, Animal Painters, and a book on the artist George Morland, whom he held in high esteem.

Over Gilbey’s lifetime he compiled one of the most important British sporting art collections ever assembled. After his death, in 1910, the contents of his London residence, Cambridge House in Regents Park, and some his collection at Elsenham Hall were dispersed by Christie’s on 12th, 14th, and 15th March 1910. In 1915 the 18 |

introduction contents of Elsenham Hall were also sold by Christie’s.

The 1910 sale catalogue reads like a roll call of British sporting art as it contained fourteen paintings by Henry Alken and ten by Samuel Alken, six by Abraham Cooper, two by John Ferneley, eleven by John Frederick Herring Snr, twelve Ben Marshalls, twenty-five George Morlands, five Phillip Reinagles, seventeen works from the Sartorius family, thirty-seven by George Stubbs, (including Haymakers and Reapers, now both Tate) and Gimcrack, five by John Wootton, seven by Sawrey Gilpin, three each by James Pollard, Stephen Elmer, and Edmund Bristow, two each by Charles Cooper Henderson, Thomas Gooch, Jacques Laurent Agasse, James Barenger, Henry Bernard Chalon, and works by John Boultbee, John Dalby, George Garrard, Edgar Hunt, Edwin Landseer, William Shayer, Peter Tillemans, Charles Towne, and James Ward and others. Amongst all these were also eleven paintings by Seymour.

The 1936 Spink exhibition catalogue was essentially a list of the drawings with a few biographical notes on the racehorses and no images, compiled by Charles Matthew Prior (author of The History of the Racing Calendar and The Stud-Book, 1926), Walter Shaw Sparrow and Messrs Weatherby’s. In the introduction to the 1936 catalogue Captain Jack Spink concluded: The present exhibition is the first to be devoted solely to his drawings, and may be the means of calling attention to the quality of Seymour’s pen and pencil and of re-establishing the contemporary claim that he was unequalled in drawing a horse.

Using the resource of the Witt Library, it has been possible to link images of Seymour’s drawings to some of the entries in the catalogue. This mission to identify Seymour’s drawings became a great deal easier with the

help of Karen Hladik and Tim Cox who unearthed a treasure trove of images in America. Fairfax Harrison, a lawyer from Fauquier County, Virginia compiled notes concerning thoroughbred horses for a planned publication, ‘Portraits of English Turf Horses before [George] Stubbs’. He died in 1938 before he could complete the project, and in December 1959 his manuscript, research files on artists, collectors and printers of horse images, and correspondence, known as the Fairfax Harrison Papers 1928-1945, were given to The Virginia Historical Society. He had recorded an image of nearly every James Seymour drawing in the Spink exhibition.

After Shaw Sparrow and Gilbey started the focus on sporting painting in the first quarter of the 20th century, there followed a gap until the art historian Basil Taylor, while working on the exhibition Sport and the Horse, held at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in 1960, met Paul Mellon and began to advise him on his collecting.

Paul Mellon (1907–1999) was probably the greatest collector of his generation and certainly in British art. He gave his collection to the Paul Mellon Center at Yale and to the Museum of Fine Art in Richmond, Virginia, including over 110 oils and drawings by Seymour.

In this country there are significant holdings of Seymour’s works in the British Museum, Tate and the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. There are further representative works in the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Ashmolean, and Leeds City Art Gallery. Recently another private collection of great significance has been amassed and is still growing.

Mellon’s collection of British sporting art had been catalogued by the great scholar of British art and foremost specialist in George Stubbs, Judy Egerton (1928–2012), together with Dudley Snelgrove. Egerton helped to raise awareness of Seymour’s work, and in 1978 collaborated with Bill Drummond on the second

significant exhibition of James Seymour’s drawings in this country, The Ingenious Mr Seymour: James Seymour, 1702–1752, held in the Covent Garden Gallery, London, which comprised some 54 drawings.

During the period 1960 to 1990 Professor Sir Ellis Waterhouse, Sir Oliver Millar and Judy Egerton all contributed to our knowledge of James Seymour. Waterhouse (1905–1985), an art historian specialising in British art, one time Director of the National Gallery of Scotland and the Barber Institute of Fine Arts, was the first Director of the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art. In 1981 he published his Dictionary of British 18th-Century Painters, in which he assessed Seymour thus: Horse Painter. Born London c. 1702, died there 30 January 1752. Son of a banker and one of the early rivals to Wootton but with less variety of style.

He subscribed to the St. Martins Lane Academy 1720. He lived so extravagantly at Newmarket that he caused his father, a wealthy banker, to die bankrupt in 1739. His most ambitious work is A kill in the Ashdown Forest, 1743 (Tate).

His perfunctory assessment of Seymour is typical, and it is also unsurprising in its repetition of Vertue’s characterisation. Seymour, compared to other artists, got off lightly. Waterhouse dismissed four generations of the Sartorius family (the eldest, John, being a minor rival to Seymour) as ‘Rather dreary and very prolific horse and sporting painters, whose exhibition records are impossible to sort out.’ Thomas Spencer, Seymour’s one-time collaborative pupil gets even shorter shrift, ‘Sporting painter; pupil of Seymour’. Like many other historians of this period, Waterhouse felt sporting art was of limited interest and quality. In his important publication Painting in Britain of 1953, Sir Ellis stated 19 |

james seymour that though ‘the general run of sporting painting might be of absorbing interest to the social historian and to the student of the turf … [it] is no business of the historian of art’.

Sir Oliver Millar (1923–2007), served in the Royal Household from 1947 and was Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures (1972–1988). He was an authority on British art, particularly the work of Anthony van Dyck. He contributed to the Arts Council exhibition catalogue British sporting painting, 1650-1850 at the Hayward Gallery in 1974. His assessment that Seymour was influenced by no-one, echoes that of Waterhouse in conversation with Bill Drummond, quoted at the head of this introduction, that ‘James Seymour and Arthur Devis are the only two true British artists. They were influenced by nobody else.’

As well as cataloguing the Mellon collection, Judy Egerton (who was Assistant Keeper of the British School at the Tate Gallery, was employed by the National Gallery to revise the British School catalogue and was Senior Research Fellow at the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art) contributed the most helpful of the biographies of the artist in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB) and included him in the Tate exhibition British Sporting and Animal Paintings 1655-1867, in 1978. Like Waterhouse, Egerton repeats Vertue’s assessment, but with qualification. She draws attention to James Seymour’s ‘numerous lively and spontaneous sketches in pen and ink and pencil’ and notes: ‘His work in oils is somewhat formalised, lacking the spontaneity and rhythm of his pen and ink sketches, of which there are many in the Mellon Collection.’ Her experience and knowledge meant she was an obvious choice to write the introduction for the 1978 exhibition (to which she lent some drawings) where she expanded on the above quotation thus: 20 |

introduction There is a directness and a debonair quality in Seymour’s drawings which his imitators never caught. That directness is Seymour’s chief contribution to British sporting art.

Egerton’s analysis of Seymour is the most in-depth of the modern accounts.

As Seymour has been virtually invisibly sandwiched between John Wootton and George Stubbs without a detailed assessment of his career, it is not surprising that other art historians have been unable to contribute significantly to the subject. More recently Dr Richard Stephens has researched the career of Seymour’s father, Colonel James Seamer, in preparation for the 2018 drawings exhibition The Spirit & Force of Art. Drawing in Britain 1600-1759 held at Lowell Libson & Jonny Yarker, which Stephens and Yarker co-authored. Richard Stephens shed more light on the drawings by both father and son in his entries in the catalogue.

During the research for this publication, it became apparent how little prime source material was left to discover, though some unknown 18th-century newspaper cuttings have added more colour and information to Seymour’s story. Court of Chancery documentation, however, has yielded some interesting information, to be discussed here, which perhaps gives a different slant from Vertue and suggests that Seymour may not have been such a dissolute wastrel after all.

Aside from the lack of historical data there is also the complication that there were three 18th-century British artists painting in the same style, on the same subject, and with the almost identical initials: James Seymour (1701–1752), his one-time collaborator Thomas Spencer (1700–1753), and John Sartorius (1700–c. 1780). Colonel James Seamer is also confused with Colonel John Seymour, another noted amateur artist, but no relation.

The spelling of the surname varies considerably in

contemporary documents. The most common spelling is Seamer and throughout I shall call the father Colonel James Seamer (as he was by and large referred thus in most, but not all, contemporary literature) and his only son as James Seymour (as he consistently signed himself ). Other variations of the surname are Seemer, Seymor, Seemour, Seamour, and Symore.

The reason for writing this book was my wish to research one specific picture, which has now happened after a seemingly endless decade of deliberation. In 2012 I had visited Thomas Heneage’s bookshop in St James’s, and when I ask him for a catalogue raisonné of James Seymour’s work, his reply was a cheery

‘there hasn’t even been a book on him in 250 years!’ which I found astonishing. Here is a self-taught artist (and not a minor one at that), whose paintings had a huge influence on sporting art over the next century, who has been broadly overlooked and ignored; an artist who eventually lived in Newmarket and throughout his life faithfully recorded the Turf and its champions or not, endured every high and low in life, and somehow survived. In the following chapters, with the help of David Oldrey and Tim Cox, experts in 18th-century racing at Newmarket, an outline of the achievements of Seymour’s life is presented which is a little at variance from his current reputation.

Overleaf: detail from A saddled bay racehorse with checked saddlecloth being led by a running groom, an extensive landscape beyond, 1746 (no. 60)

21 |

james seymour that though ‘the general run of sporting painting might be of absorbing interest to the social historian and to the student of the turf … [it] is no business of the historian of art’.

Sir Oliver Millar (1923–2007), served in the Royal Household from 1947 and was Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures (1972–1988). He was an authority on British art, particularly the work of Anthony van Dyck. He contributed to the Arts Council exhibition catalogue British sporting painting, 1650-1850 at the Hayward Gallery in 1974. His assessment that Seymour was influenced by no-one, echoes that of Waterhouse in conversation with Bill Drummond, quoted at the head of this introduction, that ‘James Seymour and Arthur Devis are the only two true British artists. They were influenced by nobody else.’

As well as cataloguing the Mellon collection, Judy Egerton (who was Assistant Keeper of the British School at the Tate Gallery, was employed by the National Gallery to revise the British School catalogue and was Senior Research Fellow at the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art) contributed the most helpful of the biographies of the artist in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB) and included him in the Tate exhibition British Sporting and Animal Paintings 1655-1867, in 1978. Like Waterhouse, Egerton repeats Vertue’s assessment, but with qualification. She draws attention to James Seymour’s ‘numerous lively and spontaneous sketches in pen and ink and pencil’ and notes: ‘His work in oils is somewhat formalised, lacking the spontaneity and rhythm of his pen and ink sketches, of which there are many in the Mellon Collection.’ Her experience and knowledge meant she was an obvious choice to write the introduction for the 1978 exhibition (to which she lent some drawings) where she expanded on the above quotation thus: 20 |

introduction There is a directness and a debonair quality in Seymour’s drawings which his imitators never caught. That directness is Seymour’s chief contribution to British sporting art.

Egerton’s analysis of Seymour is the most in-depth of the modern accounts.

As Seymour has been virtually invisibly sandwiched between John Wootton and George Stubbs without a detailed assessment of his career, it is not surprising that other art historians have been unable to contribute significantly to the subject. More recently Dr Richard Stephens has researched the career of Seymour’s father, Colonel James Seamer, in preparation for the 2018 drawings exhibition The Spirit & Force of Art. Drawing in Britain 1600-1759 held at Lowell Libson & Jonny Yarker, which Stephens and Yarker co-authored. Richard Stephens shed more light on the drawings by both father and son in his entries in the catalogue.

During the research for this publication, it became apparent how little prime source material was left to discover, though some unknown 18th-century newspaper cuttings have added more colour and information to Seymour’s story. Court of Chancery documentation, however, has yielded some interesting information, to be discussed here, which perhaps gives a different slant from Vertue and suggests that Seymour may not have been such a dissolute wastrel after all.

Aside from the lack of historical data there is also the complication that there were three 18th-century British artists painting in the same style, on the same subject, and with the almost identical initials: James Seymour (1701–1752), his one-time collaborator Thomas Spencer (1700–1753), and John Sartorius (1700–c. 1780). Colonel James Seamer is also confused with Colonel John Seymour, another noted amateur artist, but no relation.

The spelling of the surname varies considerably in

contemporary documents. The most common spelling is Seamer and throughout I shall call the father Colonel James Seamer (as he was by and large referred thus in most, but not all, contemporary literature) and his only son as James Seymour (as he consistently signed himself ). Other variations of the surname are Seemer, Seymor, Seemour, Seamour, and Symore.

The reason for writing this book was my wish to research one specific picture, which has now happened after a seemingly endless decade of deliberation. In 2012 I had visited Thomas Heneage’s bookshop in St James’s, and when I ask him for a catalogue raisonné of James Seymour’s work, his reply was a cheery

‘there hasn’t even been a book on him in 250 years!’ which I found astonishing. Here is a self-taught artist (and not a minor one at that), whose paintings had a huge influence on sporting art over the next century, who has been broadly overlooked and ignored; an artist who eventually lived in Newmarket and throughout his life faithfully recorded the Turf and its champions or not, endured every high and low in life, and somehow survived. In the following chapters, with the help of David Oldrey and Tim Cox, experts in 18th-century racing at Newmarket, an outline of the achievements of Seymour’s life is presented which is a little at variance from his current reputation.

Overleaf: detail from A saddled bay racehorse with checked saddlecloth being led by a running groom, an extensive landscape beyond, 1746 (no. 60)

21 |

james seymour

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introduction

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james seymour

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introduction

23 |

james seymour

3. SEYMOUR AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES

T

homas Spencer and John Sartorius were almost exact contemporaries of James Seymour, having both been born in 1700.1 Thomas Spencer (1700–1776) was probably born in Ireland as he had a sister Martha in County Cork and a half-brother in County Clare. Unfortunately, Thomas Spencer is a relatively common name and in London alone there were Thomas Spencers paying Land Tax in Blackfriars (1742), Farringdon Without (1745/6), and Aldgate (1751).2 There is no evidence to suggest that Spencer followed Seymour to Newmarket on a permanent basis, and instead the two artists must have collaborated on work as and when the need arose. The paucity of documentation about Spencer makes it hard to establish key facts about him. Based on the notice in The London Evening Post in August 1752 (see p. 51), we know that he began as Seymour’s assistant in 1738 and worked with Seymour until his death in 1752.3 Spencer was very much part of James Seymour’s studio, such as it was in the period shortly after Colonel Seamer’s death, but as discussed previously this arrangement was not a permanent fixture. Records show that Spencer also painted for Thomas Butler in Pall Mall.

The newspapers give us some more information about his work, for example, The General Advertiser

which noted at James Seymour’s death, Last Thursday died at his Lodgings in the Borough, the celebrated and most ingenious Mr. James Seamer, Horse Painter, who was the greatest Man that ever was in the World for the Outlines of Horse; and many of those Pieces, begun by him, and belonging to different Gentlemen, are to be finished by Mr. Thomas Spencer, Horse Painter, in Leicester-fields, who lived with Mr. Seamer a great many Years; had his Instructions from him, and consequently knows his Manner of Colour and Drawing, better than any Man alive.4 Spencer is listed as living at ‘Leicester-fields’ in London (now Leicester Square, and also home to Hogarth and Reynolds). He eventually owned the freehold of a house in Parliament Street Westminster and became a man of means. His death was sometime in the latter half of 1776, since his will was proved on 10th January 1777.5 The Parliament Street house was shared with his painting partners William Comyns and James Haggerty. He died unmarried and without issue, leaving his estate to Mrs Christian Affleck, wife of auctioneer John Affleck, and their children.

Opposite: detail from flying childers, fully rugged, with groom up wearing the Devonshire livery, walking by a tree, a house and lake beyond, 1732 (no. 7a)

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james seymour

3. SEYMOUR AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES

T

homas Spencer and John Sartorius were almost exact contemporaries of James Seymour, having both been born in 1700.1 Thomas Spencer (1700–1776) was probably born in Ireland as he had a sister Martha in County Cork and a half-brother in County Clare. Unfortunately, Thomas Spencer is a relatively common name and in London alone there were Thomas Spencers paying Land Tax in Blackfriars (1742), Farringdon Without (1745/6), and Aldgate (1751).2 There is no evidence to suggest that Spencer followed Seymour to Newmarket on a permanent basis, and instead the two artists must have collaborated on work as and when the need arose. The paucity of documentation about Spencer makes it hard to establish key facts about him. Based on the notice in The London Evening Post in August 1752 (see p. 51), we know that he began as Seymour’s assistant in 1738 and worked with Seymour until his death in 1752.3 Spencer was very much part of James Seymour’s studio, such as it was in the period shortly after Colonel Seamer’s death, but as discussed previously this arrangement was not a permanent fixture. Records show that Spencer also painted for Thomas Butler in Pall Mall.

The newspapers give us some more information about his work, for example, The General Advertiser

which noted at James Seymour’s death, Last Thursday died at his Lodgings in the Borough, the celebrated and most ingenious Mr. James Seamer, Horse Painter, who was the greatest Man that ever was in the World for the Outlines of Horse; and many of those Pieces, begun by him, and belonging to different Gentlemen, are to be finished by Mr. Thomas Spencer, Horse Painter, in Leicester-fields, who lived with Mr. Seamer a great many Years; had his Instructions from him, and consequently knows his Manner of Colour and Drawing, better than any Man alive.4 Spencer is listed as living at ‘Leicester-fields’ in London (now Leicester Square, and also home to Hogarth and Reynolds). He eventually owned the freehold of a house in Parliament Street Westminster and became a man of means. His death was sometime in the latter half of 1776, since his will was proved on 10th January 1777.5 The Parliament Street house was shared with his painting partners William Comyns and James Haggerty. He died unmarried and without issue, leaving his estate to Mrs Christian Affleck, wife of auctioneer John Affleck, and their children.

Opposite: detail from flying childers, fully rugged, with groom up wearing the Devonshire livery, walking by a tree, a house and lake beyond, 1732 (no. 7a)

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3. seymour and his contemporaries

Fig. 38: John Sartorius?, The Quarley Hunt?, oil on canvas.

Note similarities with nos.99a-99c

Fig. 37: Thomas Spencer, scipio, a spotted hunter, the property of Colonel Roche, c. 1750 Oil on canvas 39 x 52¾ in (99.1 x 134 cm). Signed and dated in black paint, lower left: T. Spencer pinx. / [17...] [date hidden by frame]

The General Advertiser’s notice confirms the closeness of the working relationship between Seymour and Spencer, so much so that it was accepted that Spencer could finish Seymour’s unfinished paintings to Seymour’s own high standard.

Many the late undated paintings and perhaps a good proportion of the 1752 paintings are a combination of Seymour and Spencer. Seymour died on 30th June yet there are at least eight signed and dated works for that year, whereas there are only ten signed and dated works for the whole of 1750 and 1751 together. All the paintings of 1752 require close scrutiny. Included in the catalogue are some paintings, for example no. 130b, in which Seymour’s hand is evident, but where the oil has 70 |

been finished by another hand; the contrast is obvious.

It is impossible to know how much Spencer did but as fig. 37 shows he became nearly as accomplished as his master, though there is no evidence to suggest that they ever became rivals. The only point that is clear is that Seymour and Spencer could not both stay at Newmarket in the 1740s because of the lack of racing made finding work hard.

John Sartorius (1700–c. 1780) was more of an early rival but is almost entirely without any sort of record other than that he was descended from Jacob Christoph Sartorius of Nuremberg (fl. 1694–1737), and was German-born.6 He was the start of the Sartorius painting dynasty: father of Francis (1734–1804), grand-

father of John Nost Jnr (1755–1828) and great-grandfather to John Francis (1775–1831). There is no record of when he became a naturalised British subject, and we know very little about him. The entry in the 1897 edition of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography gives him credit for four racing portraits of Molly, Looby, Old Traveller, and Careless.7 His 1735 painting of Looby, the Duke of Bolton’s horse, seems to have been in Seymour’s style.8 The Duke had also patronised Seymour directly, commissioning paintings of Fearnought, Looby, and Goliah exercising on the Heath, but the number was small. As Seymour was more closely allied to the Devonshire/Panton racing cabal, who considered Bolton the opposition, it is possible that Sartorius had tried to fill the gap. According to Gilbey, Sartorius also painted for Thomas Panton in 1722, rivalling Seymour, who was also at Newmarket at this date. Gilbey also has Sartorius painting Molly for the Duke of Bolton ten years later and still being active in the 1740s, though the whereabouts of these works are unknown. One painting mentioned by Gilbey, old traveller with Steven Jefferson in the saddle, may refer to Seymour’s painting, Mr Grisewood’s toy, with James Larkin Snr up in red silks, walking in an open landscape

Fig. 39: Peter Paul Lens after James Seymour, 1755, pencil, ink and wash on paper.

Based either on no. 7a or nos. 13a-13c

with hills in the distance (no. 63), which is clearly signed and dated by him J:Seymour 1742 but which has a later false inscription, Traveller/Bred by William Osbaldeston Esq.,/ Stephen Jefferson the rider.9 It is difficult, though, to understand how Gilbey could confuse this painting with one by John Sartorius. On the other hand, an oil of the so-called Quarley Hunt (fig. 38), previously given to Seymour, has a fragment of a signature and date still visible, and given that it is significantly different in style to that of Seymour and the signature not his, it may be a signed and dated example of John Sartorius’ work. In fact no record of any other signed or dated work by John Sartorius survives, making any comparisons highly speculative and leaving one to wonder if he even existed as an artist?

Peter Paul Lens (1714/15–after 1754) was another follower of Seymour, and examples of his work, such as fig.

39, are in the Halifax Collection.10 Younger than Seymour, Lens was probably more of a drinking partner than a friend, and in artistic terms he was very much under Seymour’s thrall, being no more than a copyist of the older artist’s work. He is sometimes mistaken for Seymour, the last offering at auction being a drawing of a ‘Horse moving to the left’, at the Racing Sale at Bonhams Ipswich on 20th July 2006, lot 84.11 71 |

james seymour

3. seymour and his contemporaries

Fig. 38: John Sartorius?, The Quarley Hunt?, oil on canvas.

Note similarities with nos.99a-99c

Fig. 37: Thomas Spencer, scipio, a spotted hunter, the property of Colonel Roche, c. 1750 Oil on canvas 39 x 52¾ in (99.1 x 134 cm). Signed and dated in black paint, lower left: T. Spencer pinx. / [17...] [date hidden by frame]

The General Advertiser’s notice confirms the closeness of the working relationship between Seymour and Spencer, so much so that it was accepted that Spencer could finish Seymour’s unfinished paintings to Seymour’s own high standard.

Many the late undated paintings and perhaps a good proportion of the 1752 paintings are a combination of Seymour and Spencer. Seymour died on 30th June yet there are at least eight signed and dated works for that year, whereas there are only ten signed and dated works for the whole of 1750 and 1751 together. All the paintings of 1752 require close scrutiny. Included in the catalogue are some paintings, for example no. 130b, in which Seymour’s hand is evident, but where the oil has 70 |

been finished by another hand; the contrast is obvious.

It is impossible to know how much Spencer did but as fig. 37 shows he became nearly as accomplished as his master, though there is no evidence to suggest that they ever became rivals. The only point that is clear is that Seymour and Spencer could not both stay at Newmarket in the 1740s because of the lack of racing made finding work hard.

John Sartorius (1700–c. 1780) was more of an early rival but is almost entirely without any sort of record other than that he was descended from Jacob Christoph Sartorius of Nuremberg (fl. 1694–1737), and was German-born.6 He was the start of the Sartorius painting dynasty: father of Francis (1734–1804), grand-

father of John Nost Jnr (1755–1828) and great-grandfather to John Francis (1775–1831). There is no record of when he became a naturalised British subject, and we know very little about him. The entry in the 1897 edition of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography gives him credit for four racing portraits of Molly, Looby, Old Traveller, and Careless.7 His 1735 painting of Looby, the Duke of Bolton’s horse, seems to have been in Seymour’s style.8 The Duke had also patronised Seymour directly, commissioning paintings of Fearnought, Looby, and Goliah exercising on the Heath, but the number was small. As Seymour was more closely allied to the Devonshire/Panton racing cabal, who considered Bolton the opposition, it is possible that Sartorius had tried to fill the gap. According to Gilbey, Sartorius also painted for Thomas Panton in 1722, rivalling Seymour, who was also at Newmarket at this date. Gilbey also has Sartorius painting Molly for the Duke of Bolton ten years later and still being active in the 1740s, though the whereabouts of these works are unknown. One painting mentioned by Gilbey, old traveller with Steven Jefferson in the saddle, may refer to Seymour’s painting, Mr Grisewood’s toy, with James Larkin Snr up in red silks, walking in an open landscape

Fig. 39: Peter Paul Lens after James Seymour, 1755, pencil, ink and wash on paper.

Based either on no. 7a or nos. 13a-13c

with hills in the distance (no. 63), which is clearly signed and dated by him J:Seymour 1742 but which has a later false inscription, Traveller/Bred by William Osbaldeston Esq.,/ Stephen Jefferson the rider.9 It is difficult, though, to understand how Gilbey could confuse this painting with one by John Sartorius. On the other hand, an oil of the so-called Quarley Hunt (fig. 38), previously given to Seymour, has a fragment of a signature and date still visible, and given that it is significantly different in style to that of Seymour and the signature not his, it may be a signed and dated example of John Sartorius’ work. In fact no record of any other signed or dated work by John Sartorius survives, making any comparisons highly speculative and leaving one to wonder if he even existed as an artist?

Peter Paul Lens (1714/15–after 1754) was another follower of Seymour, and examples of his work, such as fig.

39, are in the Halifax Collection.10 Younger than Seymour, Lens was probably more of a drinking partner than a friend, and in artistic terms he was very much under Seymour’s thrall, being no more than a copyist of the older artist’s work. He is sometimes mistaken for Seymour, the last offering at auction being a drawing of a ‘Horse moving to the left’, at the Racing Sale at Bonhams Ipswich on 20th July 2006, lot 84.11 71 |

james seymour Lens was the youngest of three sons of the limner Bernard Lens III (1682–1740). Both father and son were apprenticed to the engraver John Sturt of the Goldsmith’s Company, Bernard Lens III in 1698 and, after training with his father, Peter Paul in 1729.12 Bernard was the most successful of this artistic family. He was the first miniaturist in Britain to paint on ivory rather than vellum. He also taught Princess Mary, elder sister of Princess Amelia, who was later an important figure in Seymour’s drawings and paintings. According to Vertue, Bernard Lens was included in an unfinished portrait of the Virtuosi but there is no evidence that he was actually a member.13 He was certainly a member of the Rose and Crown Club together with Hogarth, Vertue, and Zincke.

According to Katherine Coombes, his son Peter Paul ‘became notorious as a member between 1737 and 1738 of a hellfire club in Ireland called The Blasters’; Vertue called him, ‘Young Lens the reprobate’ and later described him as An Ingenious Youth. Whose vile, atheistical conversations and behaviour, publickly practiced (for some such wicked and blasphemous affair in Ireland He was forc’d to fly away) which is in keeping with his parents’ dim view of him.14 Bernard Lens died on Christmas Eve 1740, just under two years after Colonel Seamer, ‘after his long illness, being sweld by very slow and continud degres carryd him off. By a dropsy.’ 15 Peter Paul’s reputation for dissolute and profligate behaviour ultimately paid a high price. The will of his father proved in 1740 reads thus: And whereas my youngest son Peter Paul Lens has for a long time past behaved himself with great Disrespect, Disobedience, and Undutifull72 |

3. seymour and his contemporaries ness towards me as also to his mother, hereinafter named, and still persists in the same… : one shilling and no more.16 Obviously, Bernard was not as indulgent as Colonel Seamer, and Peter Paul was cut off with the proverbial shilling. It would seem that Seymour and Peter Paul both behaved rather badly in the 1730s and the sobering end of the decade with their fathers’ deaths brought reality up close. As the son of a bankrupt, James Seymour hardly had anything left to him either.

There are further conundrums in Seymour’s œuvre that need addressing but regrettably it is doubtful that firm proof can be found to prove or disprove any theory.

For example, there is a group of up to six small oils with Seymour’s unmistakeable eye for detail but in which, puzzlingly, racehorses, in some cases identifiable such as Flying Childers (no. 7b) and Sedbury (no. 53, fig. 40), are set in woodland settings rather than on the Heath. For various reasons these pictures cannot have been painted early in Seymour’s career; for instance, Sedbury was not known to Seymour until 1740 when he came to Newmarket as a 6-year-old. Are these examples of Spencer trying his hand in the backgrounds of Seymour subjects? Could they perhaps be by someone else altogether? Yet the flying childers of 1732 (no. 7a, see detail p. 69) is both a wonderful work and signed and dated and is to my knowledge, along with a pair of untraced drawings, Seymour’s earliest dated work. The oil of Sedbury (no. 53) derives from the 1732 oil but cannot be of that date as Sedbury was not even known to Seymour for another eight years when his style of painting had matured even further.

The other four known Seymour oils of Sedbury on the Heath date from 1744 to 1752 and each have Larkin’s paddock (where the horse was stabled and trained) in the distance.

Fig. 40: Mr Martindale’s sedbury, a chesnut racehorse with a blaze, with James Larkin Jnr up in Martindale colours and saddlecloth blue trimmed yellow, walking with a greyhound in a wooded landscape, a house beyond, c. 1740-50 (no. 53)

The question is why would Seymour pose Sedbury in a wood with a whippet as opposed to on the Heath, and why did he do so again for Flying Childers.

There is no evidence that Seymour ever saw Chatsworth and it is speculation that the house in the distance is an imprecise representation of it. By this date

Childers would have been an old horse at Chatsworth

not a young one in training as depicted here.

Seymour may have painted horse, rider and hounds, and a studio hand created the background. All these works are of sufficient quality to be by Seymour and the questions posed by them may well be unanswerable.

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james seymour Lens was the youngest of three sons of the limner Bernard Lens III (1682–1740). Both father and son were apprenticed to the engraver John Sturt of the Goldsmith’s Company, Bernard Lens III in 1698 and, after training with his father, Peter Paul in 1729.12 Bernard was the most successful of this artistic family. He was the first miniaturist in Britain to paint on ivory rather than vellum. He also taught Princess Mary, elder sister of Princess Amelia, who was later an important figure in Seymour’s drawings and paintings. According to Vertue, Bernard Lens was included in an unfinished portrait of the Virtuosi but there is no evidence that he was actually a member.13 He was certainly a member of the Rose and Crown Club together with Hogarth, Vertue, and Zincke.

According to Katherine Coombes, his son Peter Paul ‘became notorious as a member between 1737 and 1738 of a hellfire club in Ireland called The Blasters’; Vertue called him, ‘Young Lens the reprobate’ and later described him as An Ingenious Youth. Whose vile, atheistical conversations and behaviour, publickly practiced (for some such wicked and blasphemous affair in Ireland He was forc’d to fly away) which is in keeping with his parents’ dim view of him.14 Bernard Lens died on Christmas Eve 1740, just under two years after Colonel Seamer, ‘after his long illness, being sweld by very slow and continud degres carryd him off. By a dropsy.’ 15 Peter Paul’s reputation for dissolute and profligate behaviour ultimately paid a high price. The will of his father proved in 1740 reads thus: And whereas my youngest son Peter Paul Lens has for a long time past behaved himself with great Disrespect, Disobedience, and Undutifull72 |

3. seymour and his contemporaries ness towards me as also to his mother, hereinafter named, and still persists in the same… : one shilling and no more.16 Obviously, Bernard was not as indulgent as Colonel Seamer, and Peter Paul was cut off with the proverbial shilling. It would seem that Seymour and Peter Paul both behaved rather badly in the 1730s and the sobering end of the decade with their fathers’ deaths brought reality up close. As the son of a bankrupt, James Seymour hardly had anything left to him either.

There are further conundrums in Seymour’s œuvre that need addressing but regrettably it is doubtful that firm proof can be found to prove or disprove any theory.

For example, there is a group of up to six small oils with Seymour’s unmistakeable eye for detail but in which, puzzlingly, racehorses, in some cases identifiable such as Flying Childers (no. 7b) and Sedbury (no. 53, fig. 40), are set in woodland settings rather than on the Heath. For various reasons these pictures cannot have been painted early in Seymour’s career; for instance, Sedbury was not known to Seymour until 1740 when he came to Newmarket as a 6-year-old. Are these examples of Spencer trying his hand in the backgrounds of Seymour subjects? Could they perhaps be by someone else altogether? Yet the flying childers of 1732 (no. 7a, see detail p. 69) is both a wonderful work and signed and dated and is to my knowledge, along with a pair of untraced drawings, Seymour’s earliest dated work. The oil of Sedbury (no. 53) derives from the 1732 oil but cannot be of that date as Sedbury was not even known to Seymour for another eight years when his style of painting had matured even further.

The other four known Seymour oils of Sedbury on the Heath date from 1744 to 1752 and each have Larkin’s paddock (where the horse was stabled and trained) in the distance.

Fig. 40: Mr Martindale’s sedbury, a chesnut racehorse with a blaze, with James Larkin Jnr up in Martindale colours and saddlecloth blue trimmed yellow, walking with a greyhound in a wooded landscape, a house beyond, c. 1740-50 (no. 53)

The question is why would Seymour pose Sedbury in a wood with a whippet as opposed to on the Heath, and why did he do so again for Flying Childers.

There is no evidence that Seymour ever saw Chatsworth and it is speculation that the house in the distance is an imprecise representation of it. By this date

Childers would have been an old horse at Chatsworth

not a young one in training as depicted here.

Seymour may have painted horse, rider and hounds, and a studio hand created the background. All these works are of sufficient quality to be by Seymour and the questions posed by them may well be unanswerable.

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james seymour

34. A grey racehorse with groom up wearing a salmon pink trimmed white livery, at the Well Gap on Newmarket Heath, with other horses from the same stable exercising beyond Oil on canvas, 38¾ x 48¾ in (98.5 x 124 cm) Private Collection, Europe

provenance: Probably John Jolliffe (1697–1772) and thence by descent; A Family Trust, Sotheby’s London, 12th April 1995, lot 152 160 |

catalogue of paintings

literature: Ammerdown Valuation Book, 1903, p. 31, no. 88 This horse was claimed to be the Duke of Bridgewater’s

ashridge ball but the Duke’s colours were purplish red-

dish brown trimmed yellow (see no. 20), never salmon pink trimmed white. This painting forms part of a group of four oils that are markedly different from the majority. See note to no. 5.

35. The 3rd Duke of Devonshire’s grey racehorse, probably plaistow or fleec’em, saddled and held by a groom in Devonshire livery in an open landscape c. 1735

Oil on canvas, 11¾ x 14⅞ in (30 x 37.7 cm) Private European Collection

provenance: With Arthur Ackermann & Son Ltd, and sold as part of two pairs to the Hon. David Astor, October

1949, as two pairs (see nos. 13a, 79b, and 86b) and by descent; Bonham’s London, 8th December 2004, lot 5 with incorrect provenance It is possible that the horse is plaistow but without a date it is not possible to be certain. However, he was the most successful grey the Duke had in the 1730s. Almost the only alternative is the equally useful fleec’em. Both were sons of flying childers, and foaled in 1730 and 1731 respectively.

Whilst this seems to be a Devonshire horse the saddlecloth is not edged yellow as usual but blue.

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james seymour

34. A grey racehorse with groom up wearing a salmon pink trimmed white livery, at the Well Gap on Newmarket Heath, with other horses from the same stable exercising beyond Oil on canvas, 38¾ x 48¾ in (98.5 x 124 cm) Private Collection, Europe

provenance: Probably John Jolliffe (1697–1772) and thence by descent; A Family Trust, Sotheby’s London, 12th April 1995, lot 152 160 |

catalogue of paintings

literature: Ammerdown Valuation Book, 1903, p. 31, no. 88 This horse was claimed to be the Duke of Bridgewater’s

ashridge ball but the Duke’s colours were purplish red-

dish brown trimmed yellow (see no. 20), never salmon pink trimmed white. This painting forms part of a group of four oils that are markedly different from the majority. See note to no. 5.

35. The 3rd Duke of Devonshire’s grey racehorse, probably plaistow or fleec’em, saddled and held by a groom in Devonshire livery in an open landscape c. 1735

Oil on canvas, 11¾ x 14⅞ in (30 x 37.7 cm) Private European Collection

provenance: With Arthur Ackermann & Son Ltd, and sold as part of two pairs to the Hon. David Astor, October

1949, as two pairs (see nos. 13a, 79b, and 86b) and by descent; Bonham’s London, 8th December 2004, lot 5 with incorrect provenance It is possible that the horse is plaistow but without a date it is not possible to be certain. However, he was the most successful grey the Duke had in the 1730s. Almost the only alternative is the equally useful fleec’em. Both were sons of flying childers, and foaled in 1730 and 1731 respectively.

Whilst this seems to be a Devonshire horse the saddlecloth is not edged yellow as usual but blue.

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catalogue of paintings

d274

36. Thomas Panton’s conqueror leading his commoner exercising, on Warren Hill, Newmarket Heath with a string of the Duke of Bolton’s horses beyond c. 1735–1736

Oil on canvas, 39¼ x 48½ in (100 x 123.5 cm) Whereabouts unknown

provenance: Christie’s London, 13th July 1984, lot 28 as 39¾ x 49½ in; Sotheby’s London, 14th June 2001, lot 20, as Seymour and Studio Since it has not been possible to see this picture since its sale over twenty years ago, it is impossible to confirm the attribution or to identify the central figures. The colours of the saddlecloth on the roan horse in the middle ground are those of Thomas Panton, so the rider, with powdered wig

and tricorn hat, could be Panton himself. The unidentified central figure attended by his servants is in very plain attire.

The two main horses have been identified by annotations on d274. conqueror, the leading horse, was painted by Seymour again in 1752 (no. 129) and he together with commoner were the two best horses that Thomas Panton had at that time, when they were both on the Heath. The Bolton string appears to be led by Conqueror’s opponent, looby, who is being followed by the bolton starling. conqueror was with Panton from 1735 to 1736, and he won the King’s Plate at Newmarket in April 1735. Panton had commoner from 1731 to 1736.

Another variant catalogued as Studio and possibly by Spencer measures 35½ x 45 in. It was sold by Leggatt’s on 5th October 1932 for £220. It was formerly in the collection at Hill Hall, Essex and is now in a Private Collection, UK.

37. John Jolliffe MP with his huntsman, galloping up a hill with a pack of hounds in full cry, with other followers in an extensive wooded landscape 1736

Signed and dated J:Seymour/fecit 1736

Oil on canvas, 38⅞ x 48¾ in (98.5 x 124 cm) Private Collection, UK

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provenance: John Jolliffe (1697–1772) and thence by family descent exhibited: Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA, Sport and the Horse, 1st April–15th May 1960, no. 9

literature: Gilbey, Sir W., Bt, Animal Painters of England, vol. ii, 1900, p. 168; Ammerdown Valuation Book, 1903, p. 26, no. 91; Hussey, C., ‘Horses by James Seymour at Ammerdown’, Country Life, vol. LXV, 26th January 1929, p. 128, illus.

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catalogue of paintings

d274

36. Thomas Panton’s conqueror leading his commoner exercising, on Warren Hill, Newmarket Heath with a string of the Duke of Bolton’s horses beyond c. 1735–1736

Oil on canvas, 39¼ x 48½ in (100 x 123.5 cm) Whereabouts unknown

provenance: Christie’s London, 13th July 1984, lot 28 as 39¾ x 49½ in; Sotheby’s London, 14th June 2001, lot 20, as Seymour and Studio Since it has not been possible to see this picture since its sale over twenty years ago, it is impossible to confirm the attribution or to identify the central figures. The colours of the saddlecloth on the roan horse in the middle ground are those of Thomas Panton, so the rider, with powdered wig

and tricorn hat, could be Panton himself. The unidentified central figure attended by his servants is in very plain attire.

The two main horses have been identified by annotations on d274. conqueror, the leading horse, was painted by Seymour again in 1752 (no. 129) and he together with commoner were the two best horses that Thomas Panton had at that time, when they were both on the Heath. The Bolton string appears to be led by Conqueror’s opponent, looby, who is being followed by the bolton starling. conqueror was with Panton from 1735 to 1736, and he won the King’s Plate at Newmarket in April 1735. Panton had commoner from 1731 to 1736.

Another variant catalogued as Studio and possibly by Spencer measures 35½ x 45 in. It was sold by Leggatt’s on 5th October 1932 for £220. It was formerly in the collection at Hill Hall, Essex and is now in a Private Collection, UK.

37. John Jolliffe MP with his huntsman, galloping up a hill with a pack of hounds in full cry, with other followers in an extensive wooded landscape 1736

Signed and dated J:Seymour/fecit 1736

Oil on canvas, 38⅞ x 48¾ in (98.5 x 124 cm) Private Collection, UK

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provenance: John Jolliffe (1697–1772) and thence by family descent exhibited: Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA, Sport and the Horse, 1st April–15th May 1960, no. 9

literature: Gilbey, Sir W., Bt, Animal Painters of England, vol. ii, 1900, p. 168; Ammerdown Valuation Book, 1903, p. 26, no. 91; Hussey, C., ‘Horses by James Seymour at Ammerdown’, Country Life, vol. LXV, 26th January 1929, p. 128, illus.

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catalogue of paintings

38a. A mounted gentleman and lady with their dismounted huntsman showing them a coursed hare, with two whippets in a wooded landscape 1737

Signed with initials and dated centre right: J:S/1737. Later inscription lower left Painted by James Seymour (1702–1752)/ when thirty five years of age Oil on canvas, 28 x 36 in (71.1 x 91.4 cm) Whereabouts unknown

provenance: Charles Keyser, Esq., 1969; with Arthur Ackermann & Son Ltd, as Coursing Party in the grounds of a Country House; Mr M. Adler; the Behrens Family, and by descent; Christie’s South Kensington, 7th June 2017, lot 34

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38b. A mounted gentleman and lady with their dismounted huntsman showing them a coursed hare, with two whippets in a wooded landscape Oil on canvas, 28 x 35 inches (71.1 x 88.9 cm) Private Collection, USA

provenance: Nye & Co, Bloomfield, New Jersey, NY, 27th– 28th October 2021, lot 68 This differs from no. 38a in that the huntsman has a darker coat and the gentleman is on a chesnut.

39. The 2nd Earl of Portmore’s PARTNER beating Lord Gower’s BLUE SKIN for a £50 Plate at Lewes in the deciding heat on the Sussex Downs on 19th August 1736 1737

Oil on canvas, 37 x 50 in (94 x 127 cm)

Signed with initials and dated: J:S/1737 Whereabouts unknown

provenance: with Leggatt Bros., 1920s; Capt. A. S. Wills, Thornby Hall, Northants, and by descent until sold to Oscar and Peter Johnson Ltd, 11th May 1983

By this stage of the Plate the two other runners had been eliminated. The two remaining horses were not of great quality as the winner went on to run in a race for hunters at Salisbury that year for only 30 gns. On 28th October 1735 PARTNER lost a 200 gns match with Mr Fauquier at Newmarket but then went on to win at Canterbury in 1736 and was sold in the autumn to George Grisewood. It was a complete change in fortune as he went on to win £50 Plates all over the country right through to 1745 when he was 15 years old. PARTNER is usually called the GRISEWOOD PARTNER after his change to that successful owner and was a son of OLD PARTNER out of VICTORIOUS’s dam.

exhibited: Lowndes Lodge Gallery, London, Sport and the Horse, 19th June–11th July 1969, no. 43

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38a. A mounted gentleman and lady with their dismounted huntsman showing them a coursed hare, with two whippets in a wooded landscape 1737

Signed with initials and dated centre right: J:S/1737. Later inscription lower left Painted by James Seymour (1702–1752)/ when thirty five years of age Oil on canvas, 28 x 36 in (71.1 x 91.4 cm) Whereabouts unknown

provenance: Charles Keyser, Esq., 1969; with Arthur Ackermann & Son Ltd, as Coursing Party in the grounds of a Country House; Mr M. Adler; the Behrens Family, and by descent; Christie’s South Kensington, 7th June 2017, lot 34

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38b. A mounted gentleman and lady with their dismounted huntsman showing them a coursed hare, with two whippets in a wooded landscape Oil on canvas, 28 x 35 inches (71.1 x 88.9 cm) Private Collection, USA

provenance: Nye & Co, Bloomfield, New Jersey, NY, 27th– 28th October 2021, lot 68 This differs from no. 38a in that the huntsman has a darker coat and the gentleman is on a chesnut.

39. The 2nd Earl of Portmore’s PARTNER beating Lord Gower’s BLUE SKIN for a £50 Plate at Lewes in the deciding heat on the Sussex Downs on 19th August 1736 1737

Oil on canvas, 37 x 50 in (94 x 127 cm)

Signed with initials and dated: J:S/1737 Whereabouts unknown

provenance: with Leggatt Bros., 1920s; Capt. A. S. Wills, Thornby Hall, Northants, and by descent until sold to Oscar and Peter Johnson Ltd, 11th May 1983

By this stage of the Plate the two other runners had been eliminated. The two remaining horses were not of great quality as the winner went on to run in a race for hunters at Salisbury that year for only 30 gns. On 28th October 1735 PARTNER lost a 200 gns match with Mr Fauquier at Newmarket but then went on to win at Canterbury in 1736 and was sold in the autumn to George Grisewood. It was a complete change in fortune as he went on to win £50 Plates all over the country right through to 1745 when he was 15 years old. PARTNER is usually called the GRISEWOOD PARTNER after his change to that successful owner and was a son of OLD PARTNER out of VICTORIOUS’s dam.

exhibited: Lowndes Lodge Gallery, London, Sport and the Horse, 19th June–11th July 1969, no. 43

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catalogue of paintings 40. Mr Peter Delmé’s Hounds on the Hampshire Downs 1738

Oil on canvas, 40 x 50 in (101.5 x 127 cm)

Signed and dated lower right: J.Seymour-/fecit 1738. A label (c. 1800) verso is inscribed: This picture belonged to Lady Ravensworth. The hounds are her Father’s [sic: an error for her brother’s] Mr Delmé—the figures all Portraits. Scene in Hampshire.

and at Titchfield Place near Southampton. He was MP for Ludgershall on the edge of Salisbury Plain 1734–1741. The picture is one of many commissioned by friends of Colonel Seamer after his bankruptcy (see Chapter 2).

Vokins were London picture dealers who flourished for almost a hundred years, from 1812 to 1910.

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, Paul Mellon Collection, 85.508

provenance: Painted for Peter Delmé, and by descent to his sister Lady Ravensworth; with Vokins, date unknown; The Duke of Grafton, Euston by 1890 and by descent; with Oscar and Peter Johnson Ltd, 1969

exhibited: Grosvenor Gallery, London, Works of Art Illustrative of and Connected with Sport, 1890, no. 44; Lowndes Lodge Gallery, London, Sport and the Horse, 19th June–11th July 1969, no. 44; National Sporting Museum and Library, Middleburg, VA, 13th April–22nd July 2018, Frist Art Museum, Nashville, TN, 2nd February–5th May 2019, Frick Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, 15th June–8th September 2019, A Sporting Vision: The Paul Mellon Collection of British Sporting Art from the VMFA

literature: Egerton, J., British Sporting and Animal Paintings 1655–1867, the Paul Mellon Collection, 1978, p. 42, no. 45, illus. pl. 16; Cormack, M., Country Pursuits: British, American, and French Sporting Art from the Mellon Collections in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 2007, pp. 174–75, cat. no.

32; Landry, D., ‘The Bloody Shouldered Arabian and Early Modern English Culture’, Criticism: A Quarterly for Literature and the Arts, vol. xlvi, no. 1., winter 2004, fig. 1, p. 47 Peter Delmé (1710–1770) was the eldest son of his father of same name (1667–1728) who was Prime Warden of the Worshipful Company of Fishmongers, Governor of the Bank of England 1715–1717 and Lord Mayor of London in 1723.

He was thus from the same circle as Colonel Seamer and as several other of young Seymour’s patrons, such as the Jolliffes and the Fauquiers. Peter Delmé, the son, had land in Hampshire, having bought estates at Quarley, near Andover,

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catalogue of paintings 40. Mr Peter Delmé’s Hounds on the Hampshire Downs 1738

Oil on canvas, 40 x 50 in (101.5 x 127 cm)

Signed and dated lower right: J.Seymour-/fecit 1738. A label (c. 1800) verso is inscribed: This picture belonged to Lady Ravensworth. The hounds are her Father’s [sic: an error for her brother’s] Mr Delmé—the figures all Portraits. Scene in Hampshire.

and at Titchfield Place near Southampton. He was MP for Ludgershall on the edge of Salisbury Plain 1734–1741. The picture is one of many commissioned by friends of Colonel Seamer after his bankruptcy (see Chapter 2).

Vokins were London picture dealers who flourished for almost a hundred years, from 1812 to 1910.

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, Paul Mellon Collection, 85.508

provenance: Painted for Peter Delmé, and by descent to his sister Lady Ravensworth; with Vokins, date unknown; The Duke of Grafton, Euston by 1890 and by descent; with Oscar and Peter Johnson Ltd, 1969

exhibited: Grosvenor Gallery, London, Works of Art Illustrative of and Connected with Sport, 1890, no. 44; Lowndes Lodge Gallery, London, Sport and the Horse, 19th June–11th July 1969, no. 44; National Sporting Museum and Library, Middleburg, VA, 13th April–22nd July 2018, Frist Art Museum, Nashville, TN, 2nd February–5th May 2019, Frick Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, 15th June–8th September 2019, A Sporting Vision: The Paul Mellon Collection of British Sporting Art from the VMFA

literature: Egerton, J., British Sporting and Animal Paintings 1655–1867, the Paul Mellon Collection, 1978, p. 42, no. 45, illus. pl. 16; Cormack, M., Country Pursuits: British, American, and French Sporting Art from the Mellon Collections in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 2007, pp. 174–75, cat. no.

32; Landry, D., ‘The Bloody Shouldered Arabian and Early Modern English Culture’, Criticism: A Quarterly for Literature and the Arts, vol. xlvi, no. 1., winter 2004, fig. 1, p. 47 Peter Delmé (1710–1770) was the eldest son of his father of same name (1667–1728) who was Prime Warden of the Worshipful Company of Fishmongers, Governor of the Bank of England 1715–1717 and Lord Mayor of London in 1723.

He was thus from the same circle as Colonel Seamer and as several other of young Seymour’s patrons, such as the Jolliffes and the Fauquiers. Peter Delmé, the son, had land in Hampshire, having bought estates at Quarley, near Andover,

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› riding portraits ‹

D3 D3. Portrait of a gentleman, possibly HRH Princess Amelia’s riding master (?), mounted on a roan hunter, wearing a red coat, riding out with a greyhound at foot

Engraved: R. Parr, published by T. Bowles 1743

Literature: Shaw Sparrow, W., Country Life, 12th October 1935, illus.

Whereabouts unknown

See D19.

Provenance: Sporting Art sale, Christie’s South Kensington, 27th November 2013, lot 106 See D17 for another portrait.

D4. HRH Princess Amelia, mounted side saddle on a grey, with a gentleman, possibly Mr Woodward on a chesnut, riding out (illustrated opposite) Gouache with pen and ink on laid paper, 137 x 175 mm Signed lower left with initials J:S

YCBA, Paul Mellon Collection, B2001.2.1205

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Provenance: Col. H. E. W. Iremonger; The Covent Garden Gallery, 1982

Gouache with pen and ink on paper, 133 x 172 mm Signed lower left with initials: J:S

D4 (approximately actual size)

D5

D5. HRH Princess Amelia, mounted side saddle on a chesnut, with a gentleman, possibly Mr Woodward (?), on a dark bay, riding out, in a wooded landscape Gouache with pen on paper, 133 x 172 mm Signed lower left with initials: J:S Whereabouts unknown

Provenance: Sporting Art sale, Christie’s South Kensington, 27th November 2013, lot 104 Engraved: R. Parr, published by T. Bowles, 1743

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› riding portraits ‹

D3 D3. Portrait of a gentleman, possibly HRH Princess Amelia’s riding master (?), mounted on a roan hunter, wearing a red coat, riding out with a greyhound at foot

Engraved: R. Parr, published by T. Bowles 1743

Literature: Shaw Sparrow, W., Country Life, 12th October 1935, illus.

Whereabouts unknown

See D19.

Provenance: Sporting Art sale, Christie’s South Kensington, 27th November 2013, lot 106 See D17 for another portrait.

D4. HRH Princess Amelia, mounted side saddle on a grey, with a gentleman, possibly Mr Woodward on a chesnut, riding out (illustrated opposite) Gouache with pen and ink on laid paper, 137 x 175 mm Signed lower left with initials J:S

YCBA, Paul Mellon Collection, B2001.2.1205

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Provenance: Col. H. E. W. Iremonger; The Covent Garden Gallery, 1982

Gouache with pen and ink on paper, 133 x 172 mm Signed lower left with initials: J:S

D4 (approximately actual size)

D5

D5. HRH Princess Amelia, mounted side saddle on a chesnut, with a gentleman, possibly Mr Woodward (?), on a dark bay, riding out, in a wooded landscape Gouache with pen on paper, 133 x 172 mm Signed lower left with initials: J:S Whereabouts unknown

Provenance: Sporting Art sale, Christie’s South Kensington, 27th November 2013, lot 104 Engraved: R. Parr, published by T. Bowles, 1743

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D6

catalogue of drawings

D7

D9 D9. A lady wearing a tricorn hat riding side saddle, to the right Pen on laid paper, 146 x 162 mm

YCBA, Paul Mellon Collection, B2001.2.1219

D8 D6. A coursing study; possibly HRH Princess Amelia and companions being presented with a coursed hare by the huntsman; a study of a horse’s head and a hound Graphite on paper, 209 x 323 mm

Inscribed in graphite, lower centre: man lighter Victoria and Albert Museum, CIRC.86.1958 This is a study for oil no. 44.

D7. Sketches of a mounted equestrian pointing the way to a lady, further sketches of his right hand Graphite on paper, 191 x 305 mm

Victoria and Albert Museum, e.1356.1948

Provenance: Henry Herbert Harrod Bequest, 1948

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D8. A study of a mounted equestrian pointing the way with a whip to a lady mounted side saddle; a study of a horse’s head Graphite and red chalk on paper, 181 x 302 mm Victoria and Albert Museum, E.1357-1948

Provenance: Henry Herbert Harrod Bequest, 1948 In this drawing, the lady wears a tricorn hat, whereas Princess Amelia was always depicted in a riding hat. Seymour also usually indicates frogging and gold braid across the front of her riding habit, whereas those worn by ladies-in-waiting are plainer.

Provenance: Possibly Spink 1936, nos. 90–94 (Ladies on Horseback); Iolo Williams; Colnalghi, 1964 Literature: BSAAD, 1978, p. 86, no. 40.

The five drawings of ladies on horseback (D10–D14) correspond with nos. 90–94 in the 1936 Spink exhibition and can be associated with Seymour’s portraits of HRH Princess Amelia. The exception is this drawing, the Lady in the tricorn hat, which is related to d8.

D10. HRH Princess Amelia and companion riding Pen and ink on paper, 165 x 185 mm

The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, PD25-1968

Provenance: Spink 1936 possibly 90–94 (Ladies on horseback), donated by the Friends of the Fitzwilliam Museum, 1968

D10

A study for either D4 or D5; see note for D9.

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D6

catalogue of drawings

D7

D9 D9. A lady wearing a tricorn hat riding side saddle, to the right Pen on laid paper, 146 x 162 mm

YCBA, Paul Mellon Collection, B2001.2.1219

D8 D6. A coursing study; possibly HRH Princess Amelia and companions being presented with a coursed hare by the huntsman; a study of a horse’s head and a hound Graphite on paper, 209 x 323 mm

Inscribed in graphite, lower centre: man lighter Victoria and Albert Museum, CIRC.86.1958 This is a study for oil no. 44.

D7. Sketches of a mounted equestrian pointing the way to a lady, further sketches of his right hand Graphite on paper, 191 x 305 mm

Victoria and Albert Museum, e.1356.1948

Provenance: Henry Herbert Harrod Bequest, 1948

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D8. A study of a mounted equestrian pointing the way with a whip to a lady mounted side saddle; a study of a horse’s head Graphite and red chalk on paper, 181 x 302 mm Victoria and Albert Museum, E.1357-1948

Provenance: Henry Herbert Harrod Bequest, 1948 In this drawing, the lady wears a tricorn hat, whereas Princess Amelia was always depicted in a riding hat. Seymour also usually indicates frogging and gold braid across the front of her riding habit, whereas those worn by ladies-in-waiting are plainer.

Provenance: Possibly Spink 1936, nos. 90–94 (Ladies on Horseback); Iolo Williams; Colnalghi, 1964 Literature: BSAAD, 1978, p. 86, no. 40.

The five drawings of ladies on horseback (D10–D14) correspond with nos. 90–94 in the 1936 Spink exhibition and can be associated with Seymour’s portraits of HRH Princess Amelia. The exception is this drawing, the Lady in the tricorn hat, which is related to d8.

D10. HRH Princess Amelia and companion riding Pen and ink on paper, 165 x 185 mm

The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, PD25-1968

Provenance: Spink 1936 possibly 90–94 (Ladies on horseback), donated by the Friends of the Fitzwilliam Museum, 1968

D10

A study for either D4 or D5; see note for D9.

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catalogue of drawings

D12 recto

D11 D11. A lady riding side saddle, walking to the right Pen and ink on laid paper, 152 x 147 mm

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA, Paul Mellon Collection, 85.1060 Provenance: Possibly Spink 1936, nos. 90–94 (Ladies on Horseback)

Verso. Sketches of horses and rider and accounts (illustrated opposite below)

Graphite; inscribed in graphite with accounts and sketches partially obscured: reced [?]. 1:3: | pd [?] :[5?]: | [?] :3: | 7:6 | 1:5:6 | 1:1| total 2: 6:6 YCBA, Paul Mellon Collection, B2001.2.1202

See note for D9.

Provenance: Possibly Spink 1936, nos. 90–94 (Ladies on Horseback); TIMS 1978, no. 18 illus. pl. 8

D12 recto. HRH Princess Amelia riding side saddle, with a riding master looking on (illustrated opposite above)

The inscriptions on the verso appear to suggest that a commission cost of £2/6/6 was to be paid in four instalments. See note for D9.

Graphite and red chalk on laid paper, 191 x 237 mm

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D12 verso 305 |

james seymour

catalogue of drawings

D12 recto

D11 D11. A lady riding side saddle, walking to the right Pen and ink on laid paper, 152 x 147 mm

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA, Paul Mellon Collection, 85.1060 Provenance: Possibly Spink 1936, nos. 90–94 (Ladies on Horseback)

Verso. Sketches of horses and rider and accounts (illustrated opposite below)

Graphite; inscribed in graphite with accounts and sketches partially obscured: reced [?]. 1:3: | pd [?] :[5?]: | [?] :3: | 7:6 | 1:5:6 | 1:1| total 2: 6:6 YCBA, Paul Mellon Collection, B2001.2.1202

See note for D9.

Provenance: Possibly Spink 1936, nos. 90–94 (Ladies on Horseback); TIMS 1978, no. 18 illus. pl. 8

D12 recto. HRH Princess Amelia riding side saddle, with a riding master looking on (illustrated opposite above)

The inscriptions on the verso appear to suggest that a commission cost of £2/6/6 was to be paid in four instalments. See note for D9.

Graphite and red chalk on laid paper, 191 x 237 mm

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D12 verso 305 |

james seymour

catalogue of drawings

D13

D14

D15

Provenance: Possibly Spink 1936, nos. 90–94 (Ladies on Horseback); Christie’s London, 14th July 1987, lot 132 (4) See note for D9.

D14. A lady riding side saddle, galloping to the right Graphite on paper, 111 x 149 mm Whereabouts unknown

Provenance: Possibly Spink 1936, nos. 90–94 (Ladies on Horseback); with Bill Drummond (The Covent Garden Gallery); the Estate of Philippa Bradstock, Dreweatt’s Newbury, 22nd November 2017, lot 44 See note for D9.

D15. Two ladies on horses, probably HRH Princess Amelia, facing both ways D16 D13. Portrait of a lady riding side saddle, galloping to the right; the horse’s head turned to the right Red chalk on paper, 152 x 158 mm Whereabouts unknown

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Graphite, pen and ink on paper, 98 x 175 mm

Princeton University Art Museum, x1948-249

Provenance: Bequest of Dan Fellows Platt, Class of 1895, Princeton University Art Museum, 1948

The assumption that this is HRH Princess Amelia is based on the addition of the frogging on the riding habit not present in the previous two drawings.

D17 (approximately actual size) D16. A lady on a horse, the horse standing facing right (illustrated opposite)

D17. A gentleman, possibly a riding master, riding out with HRH Princess Amelia, a whippet at foot

Graphite, pen and ink, 87 x 74 mm

Gouache, with pen, in black ink, and graphite on laid paper, 143 x 181 mm

Verso: Inscribed in graphite: F 28 Meatyard 192 [cut off ] [6?]

Princeton University Art Museum, x1948-251

Provenance: John Heywood Hawkins; Mrs Heywood Johnstone, Bignor Park, Sussex; her sale Christie’s London 20th February 1925; the album purchased by F. R. Meatyard; Bequest of Dan Fellows Platt, Class of 1895, Princeton University Art Museum, 1948

Signed pen and black ink, lower right with initials: J:S

Verso: inscribed in pen with brown ink, upper centre: A Gentleman on a Managed Horse riding out with a Lady – YCBA, Paul Mellon Collection, B2001.2.1206

Provenance: The Covent Garden Gallery, 1982

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james seymour

catalogue of drawings

D13

D14

D15

Provenance: Possibly Spink 1936, nos. 90–94 (Ladies on Horseback); Christie’s London, 14th July 1987, lot 132 (4) See note for D9.

D14. A lady riding side saddle, galloping to the right Graphite on paper, 111 x 149 mm Whereabouts unknown

Provenance: Possibly Spink 1936, nos. 90–94 (Ladies on Horseback); with Bill Drummond (The Covent Garden Gallery); the Estate of Philippa Bradstock, Dreweatt’s Newbury, 22nd November 2017, lot 44 See note for D9.

D15. Two ladies on horses, probably HRH Princess Amelia, facing both ways D16 D13. Portrait of a lady riding side saddle, galloping to the right; the horse’s head turned to the right Red chalk on paper, 152 x 158 mm Whereabouts unknown

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Graphite, pen and ink on paper, 98 x 175 mm

Princeton University Art Museum, x1948-249

Provenance: Bequest of Dan Fellows Platt, Class of 1895, Princeton University Art Museum, 1948

The assumption that this is HRH Princess Amelia is based on the addition of the frogging on the riding habit not present in the previous two drawings.

D17 (approximately actual size) D16. A lady on a horse, the horse standing facing right (illustrated opposite)

D17. A gentleman, possibly a riding master, riding out with HRH Princess Amelia, a whippet at foot

Graphite, pen and ink, 87 x 74 mm

Gouache, with pen, in black ink, and graphite on laid paper, 143 x 181 mm

Verso: Inscribed in graphite: F 28 Meatyard 192 [cut off ] [6?]

Princeton University Art Museum, x1948-251

Provenance: John Heywood Hawkins; Mrs Heywood Johnstone, Bignor Park, Sussex; her sale Christie’s London 20th February 1925; the album purchased by F. R. Meatyard; Bequest of Dan Fellows Platt, Class of 1895, Princeton University Art Museum, 1948

Signed pen and black ink, lower right with initials: J:S

Verso: inscribed in pen with brown ink, upper centre: A Gentleman on a Managed Horse riding out with a Lady – YCBA, Paul Mellon Collection, B2001.2.1206

Provenance: The Covent Garden Gallery, 1982

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