John Frederick Herring, Sen. (British, 1795-1865)

The present work was painted in the year that Herring moved to Meopham Park, Kent, where he lived the life of a country squire. His paintings by this stage were selling for at least fifty percent more than when he was living in London. Beckett comments on this period of his career, 'Herring's style by this time, showed a greater suavity of brushwork; the veins and tendons of his horses' limbs were suggested rather than anatomised. And he clearly had benefited from his contact with Landseer in the ability to render atmospheric perspective...there is a new breadth and spaciousness in his approach to landscape which produced some of his finest work.' (O. Beckett, J F Herring & Sons, London, 1981, p. 64).