Lot 32: Richard Whitford (British c.1821-1890)

A prize ram in a landscape
signed and dated 'Whitford 1873' (lower right)
oil on canvas
50.8 x 61 cm. (20 x 24 in.)

Richard Whitford was born in Evesham, Worcester in about 1821. At the age of nineteen, in 1841, he took instruction to become an excise officer, becoming 'qualified for surveying Common Brewers, Victuallers, Maltesers, Soapers, Brickmakers, Papermakers, Postmasters, Spirit Dealers and Retailers' and was posted to Manchester. He was dismissed from this career in 1848 for alleged embezzlement and he and his family returned to Evesham. At some time after this episode he obviously decided to become a painter, and the first dated picture by him seems to be a composition of a bay hunter in a stable painted in 1855. He was still living in Evesham until 1880, but by the following year he was living in Cheltenham. He moved to London by the middle of 1885 and died there on 19th January 1890 at the age of 68, from 'Decay of Nature'.

Whitford painted sheep, cattle, pigs, horses and dogs and many of them include the animal's owners or shepherds or horse-riders. Although Whitford's business card described him as a 'Portrait and Animal Painter', no exclusively human portrait is yet recorded, and yet when people are included in his animal portraits, they are expressively painted.

Queen Victoria owned some paintings by Whitford, which hung at Shaw Farm, Windsor, but these no longer form part of the Royal Collection. Accordingly, the legend, 'Animal Painter to the Queen' was inscribed below the artist's signature on some pictures painted in the 1860s and early 1870s. However, no record has so far come to light of any specific commission.