John Frederick Herring Snr. English, 1795-1865

John Frederick Herring Snr is perhaps the best-known English sporting painter of the first half of the nineteenth century. His output was prodigious (especially bearing in mind the very high "finish" in his paintings) and it has retained a tremendous popularity amongst collectors from his own times to today. His subjects are virtually all based on animal themes; portraits of horses, hunting scenes, farmyards, dogs and other domestic creatures are all to be found in his work. He was born in London, the English son of a New York American father of Dutch extraction. He took up painting in about 1815, which is the date of his earliest recorded painting. By 1820, his style had developed from these early beginnings to become notably fluid and fine. His best work dates from about 1820 to about the mid-1840's, and he has left us with an unparalleled visual history of the English countryside and its sports in its golden age.