Lot Essay
Agasse's manuscript Record Book lists no fewer than five versions of what seems to be this composition: i) "Portrait of Miss Cazenove on a grey horse, S. Bishop's half length" in March 1808, exhibited at the Royal Academy that year as no. 166, "Portrait of a Lady" (a "Bishop's half length" measured 56 x 44in.); ii) "June [1816] Copy [from?] an old picture portrait of a lady - small"; iii) also under June 1816, "ditto small"; iv) "August [1835] copy. A lady on horseback. Kitcat" (a "Kitcat" was 36 x 28in.); v) "March [1842]. A copy of the lady on horseback. Kitcat". Three versions, all replicas in the artist's own hand rather than copies, are known today: i) the present picture; ii) that exhibited in Geneva and London in 1988-9, signed, 36 x 28in. ex private collection, New York, and Stephen Somerville, London, repr. in colour; iii) sold Sotheby's, 16 November 1988, lot 125, repr. in colour, 36 x 27¾in., ex Powles family, very close to ii), with a long-eared spaniel, but with a different background on the right. In this version the dog has short ears and the pond is seen behind the horse and to the right rather than on the left. In size it corresponds to the standard "Three Quarter" size and, as is suggested by Colston Sanger in the 1988-9 catalogue, is presumably one of the two versions painted by Agasse in 1816