Thomas Walker Bretland (BRITISH 1802-1874)

Lot description

THOMAS WALKER BRETLAND (BRITISH 1802-1874) THOROUGHBRED DANIEL O'ROURKE, WINNER OF THE 1852 EPSOM DERBY signed and dated T. Bretland / Nott 1852 lower left; inscribed with the initials JB lower right on the blanket oil on canvas 63 x 76cm; 24 3/4 x 29 3/4in 76.5 x 89cm; 30 x 35in (framed) Property of a Gentleman Provenance (probably) John Bowes, Paris and London Richard Bateman Sale, Rosebery's London, 6 December 2017, lot 534 (purchased by the present owner) Bretland painted the present portrait of Daniel O’Rourke, known as ‘the little horse’, to celebrate the thoroughbred's Derby win of 1852. The initials JB on the horse's blanket refer to John Bowes (1811-1885), one of the most succesful racehorse owners of his generation. Foaled in 1849, Daniel O'Rourke also won the St James’ Palace Stakes at Ascot, and came 3rd in the St Leger. Bowes later sold the horse to Sir Tatton Sykes for stud after which it was purchased by the Austrian Government for 800 guineas and shipped to Vienna. Bowes was the son of the 10th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne and a distant ancestor to the late Queen Mother, Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon. In 1852 he married the actress and society hostess Joséphine Coffin Chevallier (1824-1874). A gifted painter who had studied with the Austrian painter Karl Josef Kuwasseg (1802-1877), and showed at the Paris Salon and the Royal Academy in London, Joséphine took a keen interest in the arts, commissioning authors and playwrights and amassing a formidable collection. On their return to England the couple built the Bowes Museum to house their burgeoning collection of some 15,000 art works on land near John Bowes' ancestral home close to Barnard Castle. Conceived in a grand French chateau style by French architect Jules Pellechet, sadly neither Joesphine nor John lived to see it open to the public in 1892. Thomas Walker Bretland was born in Nottingham, the eldest son of Peter Bretland, the owner of a coach and carriage painting business. By 1840, after his father's death, Thomas left the family business and took up the full time occupation of animal painting. He was much encouraged by Lord Middleton one of his first important patrons. Other patrons included the Dukes of Buccleuch and Montrose, Lord Chesterfield and Baron Rothschild. He worked mainly in oils and his subject matter covered animal portraits generally as well as hunting scenes and landscapes.