Live Auction 20684Old Masters Part II
JAMES SEYMOUR (LONDON 1702-1752)
Lot 195 PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION

JAMES SEYMOUR (LONDON 1702-1752)

Thomas Panton's 'Conqueror', ridden by a groom in the Panton livery, with Looby being led in exercise beyond, on Newmarket Heath

Closed7 July 2023

Price Realised

GBP 126,000

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JAMES SEYMOUR (LONDON 1702-1752)
Thomas Panton's 'Conqueror', ridden by a groom in the Panton livery, with Looby being led in exercise beyond, on Newmarket Heath
signed with initials and dated 'J:S/1752' (lower left)
oil on canvas
28 ½ x 35 ¾ in. (72.5 x 90.8 cm.)

with Newhouse Galleries, New York.
Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney (1899-1992); Sotheby's, New York, 4 June 1993, lot 17.
with Richard Green, London.

Specialist note


Conqueror was a chestnut gelding foaled in 1728 by Fox, out of Bald Charlotte's unnamed dam. Bred in Yorkshire by Captain Francis Appleyard, he was a full brother to the Devonshire Conqueror, a grey colt foaled in 1725. Considered to be one of the best geldings that ever ran at Newmarket, Conqueror had a very successful turf career, winning all five Royal Plates for which he was entered.

Mr Panton (1697–1782) was Keeper of the King's Running Horses at Newmarket, and was recorded as owning Conqueror in 1735. On the 6th October of that year he won 300 gns. when Conqueror beat the Duke of Bolton's Looby over four miles at Newmarket. A number of drawings show the two rivals in competition (Wills, op. cit., nos. D270 and D275), and a drawing in the Yale Center for British Art may have served as a preparatory study for the present work (fig. 1; Wills, op. cit., no. D269).