Lot 809: w - RANELAGH BARRETT D. 1768

FOUR OF SIR ROBERT WALPOLE'S HOUNDS IN A LANDSCAPE

60 by 94in. 152.5 by 239cm.

signed and inscribed R.BARRETT after/ J. WOOTTON/ 1744 (lower centre)

oil on canvas

NOTE

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 (1725-42), 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 Wolpole's Houghton Hall, Norfolk, Norfolk and this painting is recorded in the Breakfast Room in the 1792 inventory.

A mezzotint engraving of Wootton's original version was published by Richard Earlom in 1870. The inscription in the engraving claims that Wootton's picture hung in the Hunting Hall at Houghton (A. Meyer, John Wootton 1682-1764, London, 1984, pp.80-1, No. 61).