English Provincial Sporting Portrait, Gentleman with Three Hunting Dogs
Possibly by Joseph Thraves (1805–1851)
English, circa 1827
Signed verso “J. Thraves Pinxt (?) 1827”
Oil on canvas, framed, 25 ¾ x 30 ⅞ inches

This wonderfully direct sporting portrait depicts a country gentleman with three dogs in an expansive landscape. A later inscription on the reverse attributes the painting to J. Thraves and dates it 1827. A faded inscription on the sign affixed to the tree may eventually provide further evidence for the identification. Joseph Thraves was a self-taught painter from Sandiacre, Derbyshire, who worked principally as a portraitist in the region; contemporary notice of his work praised his natural ability, and his known subjects include the Nottinghamshire prizefighter Ben Caunt. The composition belongs to the great tradition of British sporting portraiture that flourished from the eighteenth into the nineteenth century, combining portraiture, landscape, and the depiction of prized animals and country pursuits. Artists from John Wootton and George Stubbs through Philip Reinagle and others established the genre as a particularly British form of painting, one closely associated with rural life and the landed country world.

Whatever his name, our gentleman and his dogs have been keeping very good company for nearly two hundred years.

$5,800