Thirty-eight works with a combined estimate of $900,000 – $1,300,000 from the U.S. Jockey Club will be auctioned in Sotheby's Sporting Life Sale, with bidding open online from Oct. 14-25. Proceeds will benefit the Jockey Club's initiatives in support of the Thoroughbred industry.
As publisher of the American Stud Book and official registrar of Thoroughbreds in North America, The Jockey Club has been a fixture for more than 100 years and was founded by many notable New York society figures at the time, including industry giants such as chairman, John Hunter, co-owner of Saratoga Racecourse; Frank K. Sturgis, president of the New York Stock Exchange; and August Belmont Jr., the financier who helped construct the original New York City subway. The works include paintings by the eminent horse racing and hunting artists of their day, such as Edward Troye and Henry Stull, offering a magnificent summation of the thrills and passion of American and British sporting culture, beginning in the early 19th century.
“The Jockey Club has owned these beautiful works of art for many years, and for that time they have been displayed in our offices in New York City,” said James L. Gagliano, president and chief operating officer of The Jockey Club. “Early next year, we are moving to a location in New York that doesn't have the space to accommodate the collection. As a result, The Jockey Club board of stewards authorized management to research options for the collection, including a sale. We are pleased that Sotheby's has agreed to handle the auction, and we look forward to these pieces finding the right homes so they may continue to be appropriately enjoyed.”
Leading the group is a significant painting by John Frederick Herring Sr., titled: The 1828 Doncaster St. Leger Won by The Colonel, which is estimated to fetch between $400,000 – $600,000. John Frederick Herring Sr.'s series of racing pictures inspired by the 1828 St Leger Stakes are some of his most highly prized sporting works and this piece is one of the most valuable by the artist to come to auction in over a decade.
Herring's artistic career began as a painter of signs and coaches, but he also painted portraits of horses to decorate inn parlors in his spare time. It wasn't long before his talent was recognized by wealthy patrons and in 1815 and he was commissioned by a Doncaster publisher to paint the winner of the St. Leger and continued to do so for the next 30 years. He went on to establish himself as one of England's greatest Sporting artists, counting Queen Victoria and France's Duc d'Orleans among his many patrons and painted over 60 winners of the most important races.
Completed in the artist's dynamic style, The 1828 Doncaster St. Leger Won by The Colonel depicts the 1828 St Leger race led by The Colonel, who can be seen on the far right overtaking the group made up of Belinda, Velocipede, and Besy Bedlam, who are all identified by the inscription underneath. Adding to the drama of the scene, Herring depicts the galloping horses with all four legs outstretched and off the ground, (something which was proved impossible half a century later by Eadweard Muybridge's series of cabinet cards capturing a horse in motion), nevertheless, Herring's cinematic composition freezes the rush and excitement of racing horses flying through the air in physically impossible strides.
Further Highlights from the Jockey Club Collection:
Edward Troye
Estimate $40,000 – $60,000
Edward Troye was America's premiere painter of Thoroughbred horses and prize livestock during the first half of the 19th century. Troye started his career as a painter and illustrator in Philadelphia in 1831 and by 1834 had established a reputation as a skilled horse painter and was traveling throughout the northeast and the south painting portraits of his patrons' most prized animals and the day's most important races. Over a 40 year career, Troye painted virtually every great Thoroughbred and racing champion in the country. In 1907, the Jockey Club acquired several paintings by Edward Troye, ushering in an era of renewed interest in the artist and culminating in a landmark exhibition at the Newhouse Gallery in New York 1938.
Glencoe was a British-bred Thoroughbred racehorse, foaled in 1831 by Sultan out of Trampoline, and one of the first stallions imported into the United States when he was purchased in February 1848. He stood 15 hands 1 3/4 inches high, with a large star and half-stockinged hind legs. Troye first painted Glencoe in 1842 and again, in 1857, some three weeks before the horse's death. The Jockey Club picture is an autograph replica of this last portrait (now in the collection of the National Museum of Racing in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.).
Henry Stull
Estimate: $6,000 – $8,000
In the wake of Edward Troye, Henry Stull was considered one of the most sought-after painters of American racehorses in the second half of the 19th century. Stull's interest in horses began at an early age in the footsteps of his father, a coachman, and on the racetracks in New York where he consoled himself after less than successful attempts to become an actor. Stull's career as an artist began as an illustrator, with Leslie's Weekly, and later the horse and sporting magazine Spirit of the Times and eventually Harper's Weekly, with whom he first published in 1883. Stull's portraits of horses are notable for their anatomical precision, a skill he honed at a veterinarian college where he was able to study horse anatomy firsthand. Patronized by the breeding and racing community, Stull painted over 100 portraits of horses, jockey, and races, several of which were in the collection of The Jockey Club and many more which are today in various public collections including the Kentucky Derby Museum and the National Museum of Racing Hall of Fame.
Please find the full sale catalogue is available here.
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