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Lot Essay
Richard Ansdell was born in Liverpool and educated at the Blue Coat School. He studied under W.C. Smith, a portrait painter, and then worked for an art dealer in Liverpool, before entering the Liverpool Academy in 1836, at the age of twenty-one. He first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1840, and in 1845-46 was elected President of the Liverpool Academy. He moved permanently to London in 1847, and it was there that he began to work with Thomas Creswick and William Powell Frith on several collaborations, establishing his long-lasting reputation.
James Dafforne noted in the Art Journal, 1860, 'That Mr. Ansdell has closely studied animal life, that he represents it faithfully, vigorously, and picturesquely, and that his productions are among the best of their kind which our school - and, indeed, any other - has brought forward, is to pay him and them no higher compliment than is merited. If we had no Landseer, Ansdell would, unquestionably, occupy the very foremost place in this department of Art...' (1860, p.233).
James Dafforne noted in the Art Journal, 1860, 'That Mr. Ansdell has closely studied animal life, that he represents it faithfully, vigorously, and picturesquely, and that his productions are among the best of their kind which our school - and, indeed, any other - has brought forward, is to pay him and them no higher compliment than is merited. If we had no Landseer, Ansdell would, unquestionably, occupy the very foremost place in this department of Art...' (1860, p.233).