Adonis, from: Celebrated Horses (Frankau 1; Grundy 17; Beckett L5)

James Ward was one of the most prominent British artists of the early 19th century. In 1794 he was appointed ‘Painter and Engraver in Mezzotint’ to the Prince of Wales, the future King George IV. In the 1820's he commissioned a series of fourteen lithographs of celebrated horses, including Adonis, his late father’s favourite charger. The present lithograph is closely related to a painting (sold at Christie’s in New York on 6 December 1996, lot 24), which led Becket to remark: 'This magnificent image of a strong type of Hanoverian horse was a favourite motif of Ward's and features in several pictures. The highly romantic treatment of the mane and tail blown forward by the wind, and the wild terrain, are a long way from the ordered precision of the parade-ground’.