Taking the Fence; Gone to Ground; End of the Run; and Treeing the Fox

Dean Wolstenholme Sen. was born in Yorkshire to a family of considerable property. He enjoyed a gentleman's lifestyle, hunting and painting for pleasure. Sir Joshua Reynolds purportedly predicted that he would paint professionally, on seeing some of his early works. Following a difficult litigation over property in 1893, Wolstenholme turned to art for a living, exhibiting his first picture at the Royal Academy in 1803, where he exhibited horse and dog pictures, and coursing and hunting scenes until 1824. His son, Dean Wolstenholme Jnr. (1798-1883), also became a painter of sporting art.