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Item #16237 Coronation, the Winner of the Derby Stakes, at Epsom, 1841. John Frederick HERRING, Charles HUNT.

HERRING, John Frederick (1795-1865) aquatinted by Charles HUNT

Coronation, the Winner of the Derby Stakes, at Epsom, 1841.

London: Messrs. S. & J. Fuller at their Sporting Gallery, Rathbone Place, W., July 1841. Colour-printed aquatint by Charles Hunt, finished by hand and highlighted with gum arabic. Printed on heavy wove paper. A nice impression with lovely colour. Expert repairs to margins. Image size: 12 1/2 x 16 5/8 inches. Sheet size: 17 3/8 x 20 3/16 inches.

A magnificent portrait of the celebrated Derby-winner Coronation by Herring, one of the most acclaimed sporting artists of the nineteenth century.

Herring is an outstanding and imaginative artist who at an early age showed an aptitude for handling both riding whip and pencil. At a young age, fate took Herring to the Doncaster races where he saw the Duke of Hamilton's horse, William, win the St. Leger. The sight inspired him to attempt the art of animal-painting, in which he subsequently excelled. In addition to being a successful horse painter, Herring made his livelihood as a coachman, and for some time drove the Highflyer coach between London and York. When eventually he retired as a coachman he immediately obtained numerous commissions and was able to devote himself entirely to his art. Herring had no education in art until he definitely set up as an artist, when he worked for a short time in the studio of Abraham Cooper, R.A. He painted an immense number of racing, coaching, and other sporting subjects, many of which were published by the sporting printsellers and the sporting magazines. He was a frequent exhibitor at the Royal Academy and the Society of British Artists; he was elected a member of the latter society in 1841. While in later life he painted a number of subject-pictures, it was as a portrait-painter of racehorses that Herring earned his fame, and no great breeder or owner of racehorses is without some treasured production of Herring's brush.

Lane, British Racing Prints p.121; Mellon, British Sporting and Animal Prints 96; Siltzer, The Story of British Sporting Prints, p.147; Muir, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Engraved Works of J. F. Herring, Senior (1795 to 1865), p. 75-76.

Item #16237

Price: $2,500.00

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