Lot 236: RANELAGH BARRET

RANELAGH BARRET UNKNOWN 1707 - 1768 FOUR OF SIR ROBERT WALPOLE'S HOUNDS IN A LANDSCAPE signed, dated and inscribed lower centre: R. BARRETT after / J. WOOTTON / 1744 oil on canvas 147.5 by 241 cm.; 58 by 95 in.

Painted for George Walpole, 3rd Earl of Orford (1730-1791), Houghton Hall, Norfolk;
thence by descent until sold, London, Christie's, 8th December 1994, lot 136 (bt. for £50,750);
Anonymous sale, New York, Sotheby's, 7th June 2001, lot 490 (bt. by the present owner)

This painting, after the original version of the same title by John Wootton, is representative of a number of dog portraits and hunting scenes Wootton painted for Sir Robert Walpole (1676-1745), first Earl of Orford, generally regarded as the first British Prime Minister. Although the original version by Wootton has remained untraced since its sale to Catherine the Great of Russia in 1779, several of the seventeen Wootton paintings known to have been in Walpole's collection by 1736 survive. Wootton's primary version of the present work hung in the Hunting Hall of Walpole's country seat Houghton Hall, Norfolk.

A mezzotint engraving of Wootton's original version was published by Richard Earlom in 1780. The inscription in the engraving further supports the notion that Wootton's picture hung in the Hunting Hall at Houghton (A. Meyer, John Wootton 1682-1764, London, 1984, pp. 80-1, No. 61).