(1) The 1711 version (vouched for by the receipt in the Belvoir
accounts) with text attached. When Prior was writing Royal Studs (1935),
this picture was no longer at Belvoir, but he made a plausible case
that it was the picture then in Ld Galway's possession & hanging at
Serlby Hall. Prior had seen a photograph & described it
as omitting the scroll, & having at the top of a pillar a large gold
cup, which Prior believed must have been the Prince's Cup, which the
mare won in 1709. So far, the description would fit the "Hambleton
Bonny Black" except that Prior went on to say that the jockey is shewn
in a red jacket, cap, and breeches & in the background the racecourse
appears together with a grey mare, which Bonny Black had apparently
defeated. There was also then in Ld Galway's possession, a painting described
as a companion piece, of "this grey mare," identity unknown.
(Interestingly, by the time Harrison was writing his ms on horse
portraits, he tentatively attributed the grey mare painting to the
Yorkshireman
5. 1710? A White Mare at Black Hambleton, a painting in Ld. Galway's collection at Serlby Hall, Notts. (see the description & the identification of the locale s. v. 'Old Bonny Black', 1709).In the Virginia Historical Society are a number of files that apparently accompanied Harrison's project & the couple I sampled contained copies of paintings of the named animals. Sure enough there is a folder labelled Bonny Black, which it might be worth checking in search of Wootton's 1711 portrait. Virginia Historical Society 2) The 1715 version (vouched for by a receipt from Wootton in the Welbeck records). This is, I think the picture shown by both Fairfax-Blakeborough & Prior in the Royal Studs. (They certainly look like the same painting to me). Harrison also mentioned this painting as having been reproduced in BSA (p 12) and in The Field, 5 Aug 1926, p 251. (3) Other "replicas" of the Welbeck painting (b) the Langdale picture, formerly in the collection of Dennis O'Kelly; reproduced in The Field 2 Jun 1927, p 920 then in the possession of Col. Philip Langdale, a descendant of the O'Kelly family |
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"Newmarket" Bonny Black, from the Google Art Project, at the
Yale Center For British Art. Wikimedia |
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"Hambleton" Bonny Black From The British Racehorse. Bonham's had it at some point. Looks the same as below. |
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At artmight: Wootton John The Duke Of Rutland's Bonny Black Held By A
Groom At Newmarket. artmight Reference: Artcyclopedia |
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Bonny Black Bonny Black at Hambleton Races (said to be by Stubbs), from Northern Turf History, by Fairfax-Blakeborough. Appears similar to below. |
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Bonny Black, from The Royal Studs Of The Sixteenth And Seventeenth
Centuries, C M Prior, page 114. Caption: From the painting by Wootton in the possession of the Duke Of Portland, at Welbeck Abbey. Vouched for by a receipt by Wootton. |
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Bony Black, a Mare belonging to his Grace the Duke of Rutland. This was part of a set of photocopies that Greg Way had included with a "hand-made book" sent from Fairfax Harrison to C M Prior as a Christmas present in 1936. Harrison said there were only 3 copies of the "hand made book." The Bowles print of Bonny Black appears to belong to a set of prints bound together as A Collection of the most Famous Running Horses belonging to ye Dukes of Somerset, Devonshire, Bolton, Rutland, the Earl of Portmore, and other of ye Nobility and Gentry of England. |
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Wootton - Grey Horse Grey Horse by Wootton which hangs in Boodles Club in London. This makes an obvious point that Wootton was using a template and changing the external colour and markings. The Grey Horse is definitely portrayed at Hambleton with the Dialstone in the background. It was reproduced in the latest edition of European Trainer (Summer) but again with the wrong attribution that it was by Stubbs. E E Hutton in the British Racehorse (Sep 1951) referred to a picture then at the Boodles Club, by Wootton, of a grey horse which he thought depicted Creeping Molly, winning at Black Hambleton about 1707. |
