Thomas Rowlandson

Signed l.r.: Rowlandson, pen and grey ink and watercolour over traces of pencil
22 x 36 cm; 8 3⁄4 x 14 1/2 inches

Provenance
The Rev. B.S. Allen, his sale, Sotheby’s 21 November 1984, lot 55 (bt. Morton Morris); Martyn Gregory Gallery; private collection until 2023

A smaller preparatory drawing in pen and grey wash of this subject by Rowlandson is in the collection of the Huntingdon Library and Art Museum (Sessler99A https://emuseum.huntington.org/objects/11899/a-french-hunt). This drawing dates from c. 1792, the date of another version of the subject which is in the collection of the British Museum, and formerly in the Schwerdt collection. This drawing includes an additional figure of a fallen rider in a red coat behind the leading rider- in the present composition this figure is drawn in the distance and has an additional rider at the end of the group of horsemen (https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1939-0714-138).

Rowlandson’s caricatures of the French were amongst his most popular subjects and hunting also features frequently in his oeuvre.