Lot 1

PROPERTY FROM THE ESTATE OF PAUL MELLON (LOTS 1-36) Horses and art were consuming passions in Paul Mellon's life. In sporting art the two are combined. Much of the property offered here, intimate in scale and personal in nature, hung in Virginia on the walls at his beloved Brick House or in his office at Rokeby, the latter being the center of Paul Mellon's well known breeding operation. Many of the pictures appear in Judy Egerton's catalogue, British Sporting and Animal Paintings in the Paul Mellon Collection 1655-1867, published in 1978 and now an invaluable reference work on the subject. Sporting art was an aspect of British art that particularly appealed to Paul Mellon and one that he consistently championed. In his words 'British sporting art has been grossly underrated'. Paul Mellon was introduced to hunting as a student at Cambridge in 1930 and in his phrase became 'a galloping Anglophile'. He hunted with the Fitzwilliam and later with the Quorn, the Belvoir, the Beaufort and the Pytchley. In America, he was revered as joint Master of Foxhounds of the Piedmont Hunt, whose long runs and challenging fences made it legendary in the hunting world. Winning the 100-Mile Ride five times, Paul Mellon proved his determination and skill as a rider. He continued hunting and riding well into his seventies, although he did miss a year of competing in the 100-Mile Ride after being kicked by a horse at Bath racecourse in 1975. His injuries would have been far worse, he observed, had his breast pocket not contained a well-filled wallet and a silver pen. Paul Mellon's interest in the Turf was also forged at Cambridge, where to the east of the city lay 'lovely Newmarket, its long straight velvet training gallops, its racecourse to me the most beautiful in the world'. In 1933 Paul Mellon bought his first racehorse, the Irish thoroughbred, Drinmore Lad. For the next sixty-six years he was one of the most prominent owners and breeders in the racing world. His greatest success came in 1971 when his bay stallion, Mill Reef, won the Epsom Derby, the Eclipse Stakes, the George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes and the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe. His breeding operation at Rokeby Stud produced a dynasty of racing successes including Arts and Letters and Fort Marcy, who were respectively named Horse of the Year in 1969 and 1970, and ending with Sea Hero, winner of the 1993 Kentucky Derby. A small selection of racing trophies is offered in this sale and a further group will be sold by Christie's in Spring 2001. The depth of Paul Mellon's love for hunting and racing is best illustrated by his experience when beginning to write the first draft of his Memoirs. He had to abandon it after realizing that the first 100 pages were entirely about horses.

RICHARD BARRETT DAVIS (1782-1854)

Study of a Group of Foxhounds

Details

RICHARD BARRETT DAVIS (1782-1854)
Study of a Group of Foxhounds
oil on panel
5¼ x 65/8 in. (13.5 x 17 cm.)

Provenance

with Jeremy Maas, 1964.

Literature

J. Egerton, British Sporting and Animal Paintings in the Paul Mellon Collection 1655-1867, 1978, p. 238, no. 258.

Lot Essay

The present work almost certainly comprises portraits of individual hounds. Davis painted several portrait groups of hounds that were engraved, including The King's Harriers, Fox Hounds in their Kennel and Portraits of Her Majesty's Stag Hounds. He frequently painted the Royal harriers and buckhounds at Windsor, where his brother Charles was huntsman, as well as the Fitzwilliam hounds at Milton.

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