The coats of arms and crest on the horses' harnesses in these pictures are those of the Jones family of Shrophire and London (see Burke's Landed Gentry, III, 1850, sub Jones of Sandford and Barbados). The arms were originally confirmed to William Jones (d.1612), of Shrewsbury, in 1607. It appears most likely that this picture was commissioned by Thomas Tyrwhitt Jones (1765-1811) of Stanley Hall, Shropshire, who assumed the surname and arms of the Jones family following the will of his cousin Sir Thomas Jones, of Stanley Hall, to whose estates he succeeded on the latter's death in 1782. It is, however, possible that the picture was executed for another branch of the same Jones family. Thomas Tyrwhitt Jones was Member of Parliament for Weymouth and Melcombe Regis (1790-1), Denbigh Boroughs (1797-1802), Athlone (1803-6), and Shrewsbury (1807-10). For further biographical information on him see R.G. Thorne, The History of Parliament, the House of Commons 1790-1820, London, 1986, IV, pp.324-6.
Francis Sartorius was the son of John Sartorius and the father of the famous sporting artist John Nost Sartorius. He seems to have been trained by his father and their work is similar in style. He exhibited at the Society of Artists between 1778 and 1791, and at the Royal Academy between 1775 and 1790. Another picture of the two harnessed horses which is presumed to have been commissioned by either King George III or King George IV, and which seems likely to be the picture entitled A Pair of His Majesty's coach-horses, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1788 (no. 392), is in the Royal Collection (see O. Millar, Later Georgian Pictures in the Collection of her Majesty the Queen, 1969, I, pp. 112, no.1060, and II, pl.88).