SAWREY GILPIN
Cumberland 1733 – 1807 Brompton
A Cavalier King Charles Spaniel
Oil on Canvas
25 x 30 ins. (63.5 x 76.2 cm.)
Provenance
Collection of Sir John & Lady Esther Thouron, Unionville, Pennsylvania(i).
This charming and beautifully spirited painting is one of the finest animal portraits by Sawrey Gilpin - the greatest animal painter working in 18th century England after George Stubbs.
King Charles I kept a spaniel named Rogue while residing at Carisbrooke Castle, however it is with Charles II that this breed is most closely associated. It was said of him that "His Majesty was seldom seen without his little dogs”. During the early part of the 18th century, John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough kept red and white spaniels of the King Charles type for hunting, and for a time the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel became known as the ‘Blenheim’, after Churchill’s palace in Woodstock.
Although Gilpin’s achievements have to some extent been overshadowed by his great contemporary George Stubbs, in his best work, Gilpin’s ability to capture grace and movement was peerless. In 1794, John Williams, as art critic for The Morning Herald, wrote that “Mr Gilpin is inferior to Mr Stubbs in anatomical knowledge, but is superior to him in grace and genius”.
Gilpin collaborated with several of the greatest artists of the day, including J.M.W. Turner, Johann Zoffany and George Barratt, for whom he provided horses and cattle in their landscapes. Gilpin is an important link between the early English School of John Wootton and Peter Tillemans, and the later animal painters exemplified by John Ferneley and J.F. Herring.
Gilpin’s work is represented in a number of institutional collections, including the Royal Collection, the Tate Gallery, London, and the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.
We are grateful to David Fuller for confirming the attribution to Sawrey Gilpin.
BIOGRAPHY OF SAWREY GILPIN
Sawrey Gilpin was born in 1733 in the Manor of Scaleby Castle, the home of the Gilpins for four generations. His first drawing tuition came from his father, however in 1749 he was apprenticed to Samuel Scott, with whom he remained for nine years. He is recorded as having spent much of his time sketching the horses in Covent Garden Market, and it was these sketches that won him his greatest patron, the Duke of Cumberland.
In 1759 Gilpin married Elizabeth Broom. The first child of the marriage was Matilda (who subsequently married George Gerrard, a pupil of Gilpin’s), while his son William Sawrey Gilpin also became an artist and was the first President of the OWS. Gilpin first exhibited at the SA in 1762, and was elected FSA in 1771. The following year he was elected Director of the SA, and then its President in 1773. His pupils included George Garrard and Thomas Gooch.
(i) Sir John Rupert Hunt Thouron, K.B.E. (1907-2007). Lady Thouron, Esther Driver du Pont Thouron (1908-1984), a member of the famous du Pont family of American industrialists, was a noted horse breeder and philanthropist.