Lot 157: JOHN WOOTTON

PROPERTY FROM A NEW YORK PRIVATE COLLECTION

BRITISH, 1686-1765
LORD ORRERY'S HORSE, NOBBY, HELD BY HIS GROOM

52 by 74 in. 132 by 188 cm

signed J Wootton and dated 1752 (lower right); inscribed The Earl of Orrery's Horse Called Nobby / Drawn from the Life / 1752 (on the reverse)

oil on canvas

PROVENANCE

Thomas Agnew and Sons, London
Sale: Christie's, London, March 19, 1954, lot 93
Cevat Collection
Eyre and Hobhouse Ltd., London
Sale: Sotheby's Parke Bernet, New York, January 21, 1982, lot 66, illustrated
Hyde Park Antiques

LITERATURE

Sir Ellis Waterhouse, The Dictionary of British 18th Century Painters, 1981, p. 423, illustrated

NOTE

This majestic portrait of Nobby contains all the hallmarks of a successful commission by England's premier painter of thoroughbred horses in the mid-eighteenth century, John Wootton. Nobby was owned by John Boyle, the Fifth Earl of Orrery, who also assumed the title of the Earl of Cork in 1753. The Boyles were an illustrious family, cousins to the Earls of Suffolk, Earls of Middlesex and Earls of Devonshire. Lord John's father was Charles, the Earl of Orrery, and perhaps the culmination of his long political career occurred in 1713, when he served as Envoy Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the signing of the Treaty of Utrecht, which ended the war of Spanish Succession.

Lord John's other known passion, aside from his horses, was for literature. A friend to the main literary luminaries of the day, Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope and Samuel Johnson, Lord John published a translation of the letters of Pliny the Younger in 1751, among other works.

A distinguished patron such as John, Earl of Cork was the ideal client for John Wootton. The artist's ability to convey the grandeur of his equine subjects' noble bearing corresponded with their owner's sense of familial importance. In fact, as almost all thoroughbred horses in England descended from just four Arabians, Wootton's portrayal of Nobby highlights the importance of pure bloodlines, whether among the great families of the British Aristocracy or in the thoroughbred horses they delighted in owning and riding.

This idea is underscored here by the presence of the prominent coat of arms seen above the pediment at upper right. The coat of arms consists of a heraldic representation of the first marriage of John Boyle, 5th Earl of Orrery, to Henrietta, daughter of George Hamilton, Earl of Orkney. A coat of arms in this form would have been in use from 1731 (when Lord John succeeded to the earldom) until his second marriage in 1738. The shield represents the marital arms of Lord John and his first wife in combination: those of the Boyle family appear on the left-hand side, and on the right are the arms of the Hamiltons, Earls of Orkney. The supporters similarly combine the heraldry of the two families, the one on the left being a lion, the dexter supporter used by the Earl of Orrery, and the stag, the sinister supporter of the Earls of Orkney. Supporters were often combined this way in the 18th century, when a peer married the daughter of another peer. The Earls' arms would only have been marshalled in this fashion up to 1738. This might suggest that the present work, painted some years later, depicts an actual architectural feature of the building represented, rather than a fanciful display of arms. If it were otherwise, one would expect to see a marital coat of arms incorporating the arms of the Earl's second wife.

John Wootton's soft Italianate landscapes for backgrounds, painted in the manner of Poussin or Claude, were a large part of what made his large canvases so chic and sought after, though they were derided as too traditional by contemporaries such as John Constable. Wootton's style dictated that on the whole, the horse should be placed at the composition's center, his beautiful lines shown to best advantage. Wootton's other trademark was to magnify the horses' stature. As explained by John Fairley: "the literal truth, particularly the size of the horses, may have been exaggerated by Wootton, though the boy grooms who make the horses seem colossi were often of miniscule stature; there are records of grooms riding at 3 ½ stone. But the purpose of Wootton's portraits was not to give a precise anatomical record, but rather to convey the triumphal glory of these early champions...so that they seem to have stepped down from Mount Olympus" (John Fairley, Great Racehorses in Art, Oxford, 1894, p. 48).

Nobby certainly takes on the aspect of a champion in the present work, and the bright colors worn by his groom serve to highlight his fiery eyes, upturned, alert ears, and the lustrous pure black color of his coat.