Important
Sporting Paintings & Sculpture
Front Cover: ARCHIBALD THORBURN Plate 19 (detail)
SIR ALFRED J. MUNNINGS, PRA Plate 20 (detail)
(American, 1843-1893)
Setter in a Landscape
Signed Oil on canvas, 16 x 24 inches
1.
JOHN MARTIN TRACY
Important Sporting Paintings & Sculpture
a catalog presented in collaboration
PETER L. VILLA FINE ART, LLC
American & European Paintings from the 18th – 21st Centuries
P.O. Box 143 – 10 Todd Avenue Peapack, New Jersey 07977 In New York by Appointment 908-209-0342 peter@plvillafineart.com www.peterlvillafineart.com and
RED FOX FINE ART
Sporting Paintings & Sculpture
P.O. Box 385 – 1 North Madison Street Middleburg, Virginia 20117 703-851-5160
Turner Reuter tr@redfoxfineart.com
Hannah Rothrock hannah@redfoxfineart.com www.redfoxfineart.com
A Note of Introduction
We are pleased to present this fourth collaborative volume of fine sporting paintings and sculpture which illustrates the great diversity of country life and field sports pursued in Britain, France and America over the past three centuries.
Highlights of our offerings begin with works by John Wootton and George Stubbs. Each were leading sporting and landscape painters working in the first half of the eighteenth century and were responsible for making English landscape painting a credible genre in itself; showing the way for rising artists such as Thomas Gainsborough, J.M.W. Turner and John Constable, recognized then and today, as painters who have provided us with some of the greatest achievements of eighteenth century British art.
Examples of paintings, drawings and sculpture by French artists include works by Rosa Bonheur and Edgar Degas, along with nearly four dozen artworks by British and American artists working during the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries. Highlights from Great Britain include pictures by John F. Herring, Sr., Heywood Hardy, John Sargeant Noble, Archibald Thorburn, and Sir Alfred J. Munnings. American artists are represented by significant works of Arthur F. Tait, John M. Tracy, Richard LaBarre Goodwin, Herbert Haseltine, Franklin B. Voss, and Ogden Pleissner. In each generation artists have painted the sporting life with great skill and affection, and we hope you will find the selection of pictures and sculpture in this catalog illustrate some of the best of the genre.
Please note that all paintings and bronzes are offered subject to prior sale. Artworks can be viewed by appointment, or by delivery to the buyer’s location on approval. Prices, provenance and full details of each entry are available on request.
Peter L. Villa
Turner Reuter
Hannah R. Rothrock
(American, 1819-1905) Morning on Forked Lake Signed, dated ‘85 and inscribed B.A./ Morning on Raquette Lake, Adirondacks, NY / A.F. Tait, N.A./1885 on verso Oil on canvas, 24 x 30 inches
2.
ARTHUR FITZWILLIAM TAIT
Important Sporting Paintings & Sculpture
Volume IV
a catalog presented in collaboration
Peter L. Villa Fine Art & Red Fox Fine Art
Copyright 2024
Peter L. Villa Fine Art, LLC / Red Fox Fine Art
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means - electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwisewithout written permission of the publishers.
ISBN-13: 979-8-218-53902-3
Library of Congress Control Number: 2024922682
Published in the United States by Peter L. Villa Fine Art, LLC & Red Fox Fine Art
Printed in the U.S.A. by District Creative Printing, 6350 Fallard Drive, Upper Marlboro, Maryland
Layout and Design: Andrew Hock
Artwork Photography: Peter Fountain
Mariah Texidor
and British, 1840-1928)
Signed by both artists
Oil on canvas, 36 x 24 inches
3.
HEYWOOD HARDY and FRANK WALTON (British, 1843-1933
Driven Pheasant
(British,1682/86-1765)
A Stag Hunt, c.1730-40 Oil on canvas, 49 x 62 inches
4.
JOHN WOOTTON
JOHN WOOTTON
A Stag Hunt, c.1730-40
Provenance:
Spink, London, 1960
Paul Mellon, Upperville, Virginia, acquired from the above a Private Virginia Foundation, 1978 to the present, gifted from the above
Exhibited:
Manchester Art Treasures, 1857
Judy Egerton writes of the painting… “… a stag bounds across the centre in the middle distance, pursued by riders and hounds rushing in from the left foreground and background, led by a huntsman in a red coat winding his horn. A second huntsman pauses on the right, also winding a horn. In the background in the center is an estuary or winding river with a small sailing vessel, and a port or harbour on its further bank.
The painting is distinguished by a sense of peace offset by an entirely successful treatment of a sylvan landscape. The setting has not been identified and may be imaginary.
The arrested movement of the huntsman on the grey at the right, ceremonially sounding the circular horn which curves over his right shoulder, perhaps anticipates (though with a less assured sense of drama) the striking image of the huntsman on the left of Stubbs’ The Grosvenor Hunt, 1762.”
As one of the leading sporting and landscape painters in England in the first half of the eighteenth century Wootton was responsible for making English landscape painting a credible and popular genre in itself and he paved the way for subsequent artists such as Richard Wilson, Thomas Gainsborough, J.M.W. Turner and John Constable who transformed the genre into one of the greatest achievements of British art. This large-
Literature:
Burlington Magazine, December, 1958, reproduced, page xxvii Egerton, Judy; British Sporting and Animal Paintings, 16551867, The Paul Mellon Collection, The Tate Gallery for the Yale Center of British Art, London, 1978; page 22, no.22, illustrated plate 7
scale painting A Stag Hunt, c. 1730-1740 relates closely to the important series of grand cycles that Wootton painted for his most esteemed aristocratic patrons, many of which remain today in the houses for which they were painted. Nowhere is Wootton’s mastery and versatility shown to better effect than in his great hunting scenes. Whereas many sporting and landscape artists reveled in the visceral details of the pack in full cry and the moment of the kill, Wootton invariably underplays this violence and his idealized landscape of a tranquil lake edged by trees charmingly relaxes the frenetic intensity of the action in the foreground. Wootton has framed the composition with high trees on both sides and staggered further visual devices throughout the distance as repoussoirs, leading the viewer to move beyond the hunting to the Claudian landscape beyond. Wootton was influenced by the Dutch painters Jan Wyck (1652-1702) and Dirk Maas (1659-1717) who each had the patronage of King William III of England, (1650-1702). Arline Meyer has suggested the King’s passion for hunting closely aligned with the interests of many of Wootton’s most powerful patrons which made stag hunting compositions quite popular within aristocratic collections. Wootton painted King William III stag hunting thirty years after his death, even depicting him in the contemporary Georgian attire. Our painting exhibited here is much like the royal commission.
GEORGE STUBBS
A Dark Bay Horse belonging to the Duke of Marlborough, seen near toadstools on a tree stump, circa 1764
Provenance:
Painted for George Spencer, 4th Duke of Marlborough, Blenheim Palace, c. 1764
Thence by descent to the 8th Duke of Marlborough, by whom sold Blenheim Palace sale, Christie’s July 31, 1886, lot 204 Agnew's, London, acquired from above E. Spielman, Ltd. July 6,1951, acquired from above with Scott and Fowles who exported to Wildenstein, NY December 20, 1951
Purchased by Agnew's, London, from Wildenstein, December 1956
Sir Denys Lowson,1957 (a family descendant of the Marlboroughs)
Thence by family descent until an executors' sale, Bonhams London, July 9th 2003, lot 57. ($3,150,000) Private Collection New York to present
Literature:
George Scharf, Catalogue Raisonné of the works of art at Blenheim Palace, 1862, p 197
Country Life, April 1957
Judy Egerton, George Stubbs, Painter, Catalogue Raisonné, Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, New Haven, 2007, p. 206, no 57
Judy Egerton writes that little is known about the horse in the Stubbs portrait commissioned c. 1764 by George Spencer, 4th Duke of Marlborough, Blenheim Palace. The horse was most likely a hack. For this purpose, it would have had to been a solid mount for as Joshua Reynolds shows in several portraits in the 1760’s the 4th Duke appeared as a very solidly built man.
Egerton concludes that if the sandy soil beneath the horses' feet and the prominent appearance of toad stools in the foreground allude to his name the allusion has not been unearthed. George Scharf notes that by 1862 this picture hung among portraits in the South Upstairs Corridor of Blenheim Palace.
1724-1806)
A Dark Bay Horse belonging to the Duke of Marlborough, seen near toadstools on a tree stump, circa 1764 Oil on canvas, 40 x 50 inches
5.
GEORGE STUBBS (British,
EDGAR DEGAS
Jockey au Petit Galop
Provenance:
The artist
Galerie Georges Petit, Paris April 7-9, 1919, lot 338
Brysson Burroughs
Regina Slatskin, New York
Christies, New York, May 16, 1990, lot # 103
Private Collection, Colorado (acquired at the above sale)
Literature:
P.A. Lemoisne, Degas et son oeuvre, Paris, 1946, vol. II, no. 665, illus. p. 337
Edgar Degas painted racing scenes throughout his career and his appreciation for the motion of a running horse is relayed here with soft strokes and warm tones conveying elegant movement. Created primarily with red chalk “Jockey au Petit Galop” exemplifies his unique blending of the traditional and innovative. The artist was known for experimenting with an array of techniques, among them, breaking up surface textures with hatching, contrasting dry pastel with wet, and using chalk, gouache and watercolors to soften the contours of his subjects.
Here he employed a technique called counter proofing, where a fresh drawing is pressed onto another paper surface to create a reversed image. This process allowed Degas to refine his composition and experiment with form and perspective.
(French, 1834-1917)
Circa 1881
Stamped with signature bottom left and stamped “Atelier ed. Degas” verso Red chalk and charcoal over counter proof paper 131/4 x 193/4 inches
6.
EDGAR DEGAS
Jockey au Petit Galop
7.
RICHARD LABARRE GOODWIN
(American, 1840-1910)
Cabin Door with a Brace of Pheasant Signed Oil on canvas, 36 x 26 inches
(British, 1815-1862)
Out
8.
JOHN FERNELEY, JR.
Sir William Mordaunt Sturt Milner, 4th Baronet of Nun Appleton, Yorkshire (1779-1855)
Shooting with His Spaniels Oil on canvas, 30 x 24 inches
Shooting Pony and Setters with the Day's Bag Signed Oil on canvas, 20 x 30 inches
9.
JOHN SARGENT NOBLE
(British, 1848-1896)
Spaniel Retrieving a Woodcock Signed Oil on canvas, 20 x 16 inches
10.
WILLIAM WOODHOUSE (British, 1857-1939)
Spaniel Retrieving a Mallard
Signed Oil on canvas, 20 x 16 inches
11.
WILLIAM WOODHOUSE (British, 1857-1939)
(British, 1848-1896)
Off Duty
Signed and dated 1891
Oil on canvas, 40 x 60 inches
12.
JOHN SARGENT NOBLE
(British, 1874-1962)
An Exmoor Point-to-Point Winner Signed Oil on canvas, 28 x 45 inches
13.
FREDERIC WHITING
(American, 1880-1953)
Out with the Cheshire Signed and dated 1926 Oil on canvas, 28 x 36 inches
14.
FRANKLIN BROOKE VOSS
(American, 1843-1893)
Setter in a Landscape
Signed Oil on canvas, 16 x 24 inches
15.
JOHN MARTIN TRACY
A Meet in Old Virginia Signed Oil on canvas, 32 x 28 inches
16.
HENRY RANKIN POORE (American, 1859-1940)
(British, 1860-1935)
Oil on canvas, 24 x 38 inches
17.
ARCHIBALD THORBURN
Ptarmigan
ARCHIBALD THORBURN
Ptarmigan
Provenance:
The Hiram T. Blauvelt Museum Collection, New Jersey, circa 1950
By descent in the Blauvelt family until the present
Archibald Thorburn, one of the finest bird painters Britain has ever produced, was born on 31st May 1860 at Laaswade near Edinburgh. His first education was at Dalkeith and in Edinburgh, after which he was sent to the newly founded St John's Wood School of Art in London. It was his commission in 1887 to illustrate Lord Lilford’s Coloured Figures of the Birds of the British Isles, for which he painted some 268 watercolors, that established his reputation. One which gained widespread prominence and respect comparable to his predecessor, the American wildlife artist, John James Audubon.
Thorburn exhibited his paintings and watercolors at the Royal Academy from 1880 – 1900, while also illustrating numerous sporting and natural history books, including his own. In his early years he often found himself as a guest at shooting parties, including those at Sandringham, both to shoot and paint, and his work was collected by Edward VII and George V. The artist
moved to Hascombe in Surrey in 1902 where he remained for the rest of his life, and it was here that many of his pheasant and woodcock pictures were painted exhibiting his remarkable technical abilities.
A traditionalist, in the 1930s he refused to make use of electric lighting, preferring natural light for his painting, and making use of lamps and candles.
Thorburn never lost his love for his homeland and returned each year to the Highlands of Scotland to paint. In 1889 he first visited Gaick in Inverness-shire, sketching the red deer, grouse, ptarmigan and eagles which were used as the basis for highly finished oils and watercolors back in the studio. The artist’s large, finished oils with exceptional detail and coloring and their evocative and dramatic backgrounds, are rare in the marketplace and admired as much today as they were by naturalists a century ago.
(French, 1852-1920)
Au coup de fusil "At the Ready" Signed Bronze; dark brown patina, 10 x 16 inches
18.
ÉGLANTINE LEMAÎTRE
(British, 1860-1935)
Coming Down Wind
Signed and dated 1928
Watercolor on paper 10 x 15 inches
19.
ARCHIBALD THORBURN
SIR ALFRED J. MUNNINGS, KCVO, PRA
Robert Strawbridge, Jr. on his Bay Polo Pony
Provenance:
Commissioned by the sitter during the artist’s 1924 tour of America, and thence by family descent to the present
Literature:
Sir Alfred Munnings, autobiography, vol II, “The Second Burst” page 172, Museum Press, November 1951
Richard Carreno Museum Mile: Philadelphia's Parkway Museums page 89, Writers' Clearing House Press, Philadelphia 2011
To be included in the forthcoming Catalogue Raisonné of the works of Munnings presently being prepared by Lorian Peralta-Ramos.
It has been often stated that Munnings’s best work was produced in the period 1914 - 1935 with his recording of the English and particularly the East Anglian rural scene leading on to many international commissions. Certainly, in this period his direct and vigorous brushwork, beautifully observed drawing and brilliant color exemplified a developed artist at the very top of his form.
Robert Strawbridge, Jr. was a lifelong sportsman and an icon of the golden age of national and international polo in the 1920s and1930s. He was one of the nation's leading polo players earning a 9-goal handicap. In 1924, he was a member of the Meadowbrook team that wrested the historical International Challenge Cup from the English team at the International Field on Long Island, when the Prince of Wales was among the spectators. He was elected chairman of the United States Polo Association in 1936 and retained the post for nearly two decades until 1950 when he was succeeded by Devereux Milburn.
Exhibited:
Wildenstein Gallery, New York, Alfred J. Munnings, Images of the Turf and Field, April 28 – June 3, 1983, catalogue # 37, illustrated.
Brandywine River Museum, Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, July to September 2008, Sir Alfred Munnings from Regional Collections.
He was inducted into the Museum of Polo and Hall of Fame in 1996.
Highlights of Robert Strawbridge, Jr.’s polo career in the USA:
1921 Winner, US Open with Great Neck
1923 Winner, US Open with Meadowbrook
1926 Winner, US Open with The Hurricanes
1929 Winner, US Open with The Hurricanes
1930 Winner, US Open with The Hurricanes
In England, in addition to winning the Westchester Cup in 1924, (USA vs. England at the Hurlingham Club) in succeeding years Strawbridge’s teams brought home the Coronation Cup, The Hurlingham Champion Cup, the Roehampton Cup and the Verdun Cup.
See Appendix for further details.
(British, 1878-1959)
Robert Strawbridge, Jr. on his Bay Polo Pony Signed Oil on canvas, 28 x 36 inches
20. SIR ALFRED J. MUNNINGS, KCVO, PRA
(British, 1860-1935)
Partridges
Signed and dated 1912
Watercolor on paper, 7 x 10 inches
21.
ARCHIBALD THORBURN
(British, 1848-1914)
The First of September, Setters on Partridge Oil on canvas, 51 x 66 inches Painted in 1871
22.
EDWIN DOUGLAS, R.S.A.
(French, 1881-1970)
Two Year Old's Canter
Signed Bronze; dark brown patina, 7 x 10 inches
23.
RENÉ PARIS
24.
JOHN FREDERICK HERRING, SR. (British, 1795-1865)
Lucetta, Sir Mark Wood’s Brown Filly Before the Start Oil on canvas, 28 x 36 inches
(British, 1782-1860)
Beeswing and Her Foal Old Port
Signed and dated June 1844
Oil on canvas, 34 x 42 inches
25. JOHN FERNELEY, SR.
(American, 1871-1922)
Horse and Jockey
Signed and dated 1904
Bronze; rich dark brown patina, 24 x 25 inches
26.
HENRY M. SHRADY
(French, 1831-1897)
Gun Dogs at Rest in a Landscape Signed Oil on panel, 15 x 12 inches
27.
CHARLES OLIVIER DE PENNE
Gun Dogs at Rest by a Fence Signed Oil on panel, 15 x 12 inches
28.
CHARLES OLIVIER DE PENNE (French, 1831-1897)
(French, 1822-1899)
Bay Horse in a Landscape
Signed Oil on canvas, 15 x 18 inches
29.
MARIE-ROSALIE “ROSA” BONHEUR
1856-1909)
Stag and Hinds
Signed and dated 1901
Watercolor on paper, 20 x 28 inches
30. FRANK PATON (British,
A Rise Near the Cabin Signed Watercolor on paper, 17 x 27 inches
31.
OGDEN M. PLEISSNER (American, 1905-1983)
(American,
On the Riverbank Signed Oil on canvas, 23 x 41 inches
32.
HAL A. C. MORRISON
1848-1927)
HERBERT HASELTINE
Shorthorn Bull: Bridgebank Paymaster, 1933
Provenance:
Private Estate, Florida, c.1950’s
Exhibition:
Herbert Haseltine, Knoedler Gallery, London, 1930, catalog number 14 (in marble)
Literature:
Herbert Haseltine - American Sculptors Series no.7, Norton, New York, 1948, illustrated pages 34.
Champion Animals, sculptures by Herbert Haseltine, by Malcolm Cormack, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, USA., 1996, pages 68-71.
Sculptures by Herbert Haseltine of Sculpture of Champion Domestic Animals of Great Britain, ed. Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, 1934, illustrated plate 12.
During the inter-war period Haseltine prompted by his friend and fellow sculptor Joe Davidson, became what he called the ‘plastic beauty of Egyptian sculpture’. He adopted a smoother style that was somewhat less representative and more suggestive than his previous work and and he used patina to highlight the tone and texture of the coats of his animal models. He began his Championship Animal Series in the 1920s to include nineteen sculptures which depicted popular breeds of cattle, sheep, horses and pigs of Great Britain. These were edited in eighth, third, and quarter scale (11, 21, 24-inch heights)
The Shorthorn Bull: Bridgebank Paymaster, 1933 was modeled in the 1920s as part of the Field Museum's ‘Champion Animals’ project. Bridgebank Paymaster’s sire was Gainford Ringleader and his dam Princess Christina, calved 1919. Bred and owned by Albert James Marshall, Bridgebank, Stranraer, Scotland. First and Champion at the Show Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland 1921,1922 and 1923. First and Champion at the Show of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, 1921,1922 and 1923.
1877-1962)
Shorthorn Bull: Bridgebank Paymaster, 1933 bronze, burgundy brown patina and parcel gilding 10½ x 13½ x 5 inches
33.
HERBERT HASELTINE (American,
34.
LANFORD MONROE
(American, 1950-2000)
Chilly Evening Signed Oil on canvas, 24 x 30 inches
(American, 1878-1960)
Making a Passage - Canada Geese
Signed Oil on canvas 10 x 12 inches
35.
LYNN BOGUE HUNT
(American, 1905-1983) Along the Shoreline Signed Oil on canvas, 20 x 34 inches
See Appendix for further details.
36.
OGDEN M. PLEISSSNER
(American, 1905-1983)
A View from the Terrace, Cotton Bay, Bahamas Signed Watercolor on paper, 16 x 26 inches
37.
OGDEN M. PLEISSNER
JOHN STEVENS DEWS
America’s Cup, The J Class Yachts Ranger & Endeavor II
Provenance:
Private Collection, England
Sale, Sotheby’s, New York: June 4, 1993, lot# 206
Private Collection, Colorado
By descent in the family until the present
The story of the J Class yacht is dominated by tycoons, aviation magnates and those who built empires of tea; it is a story of fervent transatlantic competition, in which vast sums of money were spent to both challenge and defend the coveted America’s Cup; and it is the story of some of the most beautiful yachts ever built, which provided some of the most closely run racing of their day.
Skippers had to be experienced in racing and their skill on the race circuit became a matter of pride. Often their experience came from sailing all types of small craft, including fishing boats, often in inhospitable waters during the winter months, when the J Class yachts were laid up. Sailing small boats gave them the skills to manage their larger J Class yachts. These mighty craft had no engines and they had to be handled with great precision to get into and out of ports. The same is true today. Skippers have to deliver their yachts across oceans, and compete around the racecourse, using their skills and all the technical advantages that are available today.
The permanent racing crew in the early days was probably around 16 men though this may have been augmented to around 30 for racing. When not required for sail changes, spare crew were often moved to below decks. With the incredible loads on the rigging and systems it was a constant concern that J Class masts could collapse in winds above a Force 3.
Ranger’s success on the water was widespread. She won 35 of 37 starts. Owner-skipper Harold Vanderbilt described her
as being “slower to turn and to pick up speed, but (she) held her way longer, and was perfectly balanced on the wind.” The inheritor of a railroad empire, Harold Vanderbilt lived a life of great privilege. As a boy, he sailed the world with his father, and by early adulthood, was an adept yachtsman. He would helm Enterprise, Rainbow and Ranger in turn, sailing each of them to victory, thus safeguarding America’s grip on the trophy.
The challenger, Endeavour II, owned by the English Lipton Tea tycoon Thomas Sopwith was designed by Nicholson and built at the C&N yard. Sopwith towed her plus an entourage of 100, to America where he worked on tuning her rig. Ultimately, Ranger vanquished the competition, easily winning the four America’s Cup races in 1937 and dashing British hopes. The era of the J Class became a story of American dominance. In fact, Americans retained the America’s Cup trophy from 1870 to 1987, when they were finally dethroned by an Australian crew.
Today, there are 9 J Class yachts in existence. The 3 surviving British yachts have been supplemented by another 6 replicas in recent years, 4 of which have been launched since 2003. If anything, this rejuvenation demonstrates the continuing pull of a yachting era characterized by drama and romance – a story of industry captains, 1930s glamour and cut-throat competition. That, and the fact that J Class yachts remain some of the most beautiful ever built.
(British, born 1949)
America’s Cup, The J Class Yachts Ranger & Endeavor II
Signed Oil on canvas, 30 x 40 inches
38. JOHN STEVENS DEWS
(British, 1932-2023) Heading to the Gallops - Winter Signed Oil on canvas, 14 x 18 inches
(British, 1932-2023) Exercising in the Snow Signed Oil on canvas, 14 x 18 inches
39.
PETER HOWELL
40.
PETER HOWELL
(British, 1932-2023) On the Gallops Signed Oil on canvas, 20 x 24 inches
41.
PETER HOWELL
(British, 1845-1879)
A Huntsman and his Whip, a pair Signed and dated 1874, each stamped Elkington & Co. bronze; dark brown patina with golden highlights 12 x 11 inches
42.
JOHN WILLIS GOOD
1821-1903)
Hounds in a Kennel Signed and dated 1897
Oil on canvas, 28 x 36 inches
43.
JOHN ALFRED WHEELER (British,
Fox
44.
HERBERT HASELTINE (American, 1877-1962)
The Suffolk Punch Stallion, Sudbourne Premier,1949 inscribed with monogram and dated 1949 bronze; medium brown patina with golden highlights 13 x 14 x 5 inches (including base) See back cover
Provenance:
Drouot Paris, c. 1984
Hirschl & Adler Galleries, Inc., New York
Private Collection acquired from the above, after 1984 thence by descent as a gift from the above, 2009
Collections:
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Virginia Museum of Art, Richmond.
Model Illustrated:
Knoedler Gallery, Herbert Haseltine: Exhibitions of Sculpture, London, 1930, nos. 1-2, illustrations of other examples.
Knoedler Gallery, Herbert Haseltine: Exhibition of Sculpture of British Champion Animals, New York, 1934, no. 3, illustration of another example.
Albert Ten Eyck Gardner, American Sculpture: A Catalogue of the Collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1965, pp. 134-35, illustration of another example.
Herbert Haseltine and Malcolm Cormack, Champion Animals: Sculptures by Herbert Haseltine, Richmond, 1996, pp. 22–29 and 32, illustration of another example
Thayer Tolles and Joan M. Marter, American Sculpture in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, vol. 2, A Catalogue of Works by Artists Born Between 1865 and 1885, New York, 2001, pp. 613-14, no. 282, illustration of another example.
Exhibitions:
Knoedler Gallery, Bond Street, London Herbert HaseltineExhibition of Sculpture, July 10th - August 9th 1930. (Catalog no.1).
Wildenstein Gallery, New York, Herbert Haseltine - Exhibition of Sculpture, November 15th - December 9th 1944. (Catalog no.14).
Casting Note:
Suffolk Punch was conceived and modelled in1922 by Herbert Haseltine. It is a fine quality, rare, twentieth century bronze model of the Suffolk Punch Stallion, Sudbourne Premier, here cast in 1949 in the medium version. The bronze, is mounted on its original variegated marble base. It is inscribed with the artist's monogram and dated 49 along the base and finished with a warm reddy brown patina with gilded highlights.
Haseltine produced each model in three sizes. The large versions, each approximately one quarter life-size, were limited to just one or in some cases two examples with the first of each going to the Field Museum. The medium versions were one eighth life-size and were produced on demand although research suggests that less than ten were cast of each one. Finally, a small version, one sixteenth in size was produced and sold as a complete set – just six of these were made. The present example is from the medium size edition.
Appendix
Plate 20
SIR ALFRED J. MUNNINGS, PRA
(British, 1878-1959)
Robert Strawbridge, Jr. on his Bay Polo Pony
Robert Strawbridge, Jr. was born at Bryn Mawr in Pennsylvania in 1896, and grew up there and in England, where his family lived each winter in Leicestershire: his father was a Master of the Cottesmore Hounds prior to the first world war. He was educated at St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire, before attending Harvard. He was scheduled to graduate in 1919, but the war intervened and he volunteered for service with the armed forces, serving with General Pershing from 1916 on the US/Mexican border before sailing for France in May 1918 for service on the Western Front.
“Bobby” Strawbridge, Jr. was the grandson of Justus C. Strawbridge, a founder of Strawbridge & Clothier department store chain of Philadelphia. His mother was Anita Berwind, the daughter of Charles Berwind (1846-1890) the coal magnate, whose brother, Edward J. Berwind, was a director of the Guaranty Trust. His father was a director of the Philadelphia National Bank.
Bobby married Florence Julia Loew (d.1973), the granddaughter of banker George F. Baker, who was a director of the Guaranty Trust, and daughter of New York stockbroker William Goadby Loew (1876-1955). During his playing years Bobby worked as a financier with the Reynolds Fish partnership.
In 1936, the US Polo team and their ponies were playing in England. This was the year of the Berlin Olympics, where Adolf Hitler was shocked to see the immortal Jesse Owens win his four gold medals. Bobby Strawbridge had been recently elected Chairman of the US Polo Association and, hugely to their credit, the team declined to play in Hitler's Olympics for political reasons. They would surely have won at least silver medals, and quite possibly gold, as the only team which could compete with them were the Argentines.
Apart from his activities as a 9-goal Polo player and administrator, Bobby Strawbridge , Jr. was intimately involved with a number of well-known charities where he worked ceaselessly as a fund-raiser, notably as chairman (1938) of the Salvation Army annual fundraising appeal where his fellow trustees were Henry W. Taft and Thomas J. Watson, the president of IBM. In 1942-43, he became a limited partner of Reynolds, Fish & Co., which had been stockbrokers for William Payne Whitney.
Plate 36
OGDEN M. PLEISSNER (American, 1905-1983)
Along the Shoreline
Provenance:
Collection of Thomas O’Brien
Sale, Copley’s Fine Art Auctions, New York, January 17, 2011, lot #137
Private Collection, Florida (acquired at the above sale) until the present
Through his sporting art Ogden Pleissner documented some of the world’s most significant fly fishing and bird hunting locales of his time. Indeed, he is often labeled a niche painter of sporting scenes, when in fact, most of his work was of nonsporting subjects.
In his book “The Art of Ogden M. Pleissner” (D.R. Godine, Boston, 1984) Peter Bergh writes “Pleissner considered himself to be a landscape painter who also liked to hunt and fish. Pleissner felt that a fine painting is not just the subject…it is the feeling conveyed of form, bulk, space, dimensionality and sensitivity. The mood of the picture is most important.”
Thomas S. Buechner, President of the Corning Museum of Glass, an old friend and an authority on art history had this to say about Ogden Pleissner: “There is a special joy in witnessing a champion performance – in tennis, politics, or in painting. Anyone who knows anything about recording the visual world in paint must be awestruck by Pleissner’s performance. Extremely complicated subjects are rendered so accurately, so spontaneously, so appreciatively that comparison with Homer and Sargent is inevitable”.
Compositions bursting with inspired brushwork, Along the Shoreline and the following entry A View from the Terrace, Cotton Bay are infused with tropical light and color that transport the viewer to a serene environment of island houses, warm waters and gentle breezes.
Index
Bonheur, Marie-Rosalie “Rosa”
Bay Horse in a Landscape (Plate 29)
Degas, Edgar
Jockey au Petit Galop (Plate 6)
De Penne, Charles Olivier
Gun Dogs at Rest in a Landscape (Plate 27)
Gun Dogs at Rest by a Fence (Plate 28)
Dews, John Stevens
America’s Cup, The J Class Yachts Ranger & Endeavor II (Plate 38)
Douglas, R.S.A., Edwin
The First of September, Setters on Partridge (Plate 22)
Ferneley, Jr., John
Sir William Mordaunt Sturt Milner, 4th Baronet of Nun Appleton, Yorkshire (1779-1855) Out Shooting with His Spaniels (Plate 8)
Ferneley, Sr., John
Beeswing and Her Foal Old Port (Plate 25)
Good, John Willis
A Huntsman and his Whip, 1874 (Plate 42)
Goodwin, Richard Labarre
Cabin Door with a Brace of Pheasant (Plate 7)
Hardy, Heywood and Walton, Frank Driven Pheasant (Plate 3)
Haseltine, Herbert
Shorthorn Bull: Bridgebank Paymaster, 1933 (Plate 33)
The Suffolk Punch Stallion, Sudbourne Premier,1949 (Plate 44)
Herring, Sr., John Frederick
Lucetta, Sir Mark Wood’s Brown Filly Before the Start (Plate 24)
Howell, Peter
Exercising in the Snow (Plate 40)
Heading to the Gallops - Winter (Plate 39)
On the Gallops (Plate 41)
Hunt, Lynn Bogue
Making a Passage - Canada Geese (Plate 35)
Lemaître, Églantine
Au coup de fusil “At the Ready” (Plate 18)
Monroe, Lanford
Chilly Evening (Plate 34)
Morrison, Hal A. C.
On the Riverbank (Plate 32)
Munnings, Sir Alfred J.
Robert Strawbridge, Jr. on his Bay Polo
Pony (Plate 20)
Noble, John Sargent
Shooting Pony and Setters with the Day's Bag (Plate 9)
Off Duty (Plate 12)
Paris, René
Two Year Old’s Canter (Plate 23)
Paton, Frank
Stag and Hinds (Plate 30)
Pleissner, Ogden M.
A Rise Near the Cabin (Plate 31)
Along the Shoreline (Plate 36)
A View from the Terrace, Cotton Bay, Bahamas (Plate 37)
Poore, Henry Rankin
A Meet in Old Virginia (Plate 16)
Shrady, Henry M.
Horse and Jockey (Plate 26)
Stubbs, George
A Dark Bay Horse belonging to the Duke of Marlborough, seen near toadstools on a tree stump, circa 1764 (Plate 5)
Tait, Arthur Fitzwilliam
Morning on Forked Lake (Plate 2)
Thorburn, Archibald
Coming Down Wind (Plate 19)
Partridges (Plate 21)
Ptarmigan (Plate 17)
Tracy, John Martin
Setter in a Landscape (Plate 1)
Setter in a Landscape (Plate 15)
Voss, Franklin Brooke
Out with the Cheshire (Plate 14)
Wheeler, John Alfred
Fox Hounds in a Kennel (Plate 43)
Whiting, Frederic
An Exmoor Point-to-Point Winner (Plate 13)
Woodhouse, William
Spaniel Retrieving a Mallard (Plate 11)
Spaniel Retrieving a Woodcock (Plate 10)
Wootton, John
A Stag Hunt, c.1730-40 (Plate 4)
Back Cover: HERBERT
