JOSEPH GOTT (LEEDS 1786-1860 ROME)

Apprenticed to the English sculptor John Flaxman in London at the turn of the eighteenth century, Joseph Gott travelled to Rome in 1822 on a pension from Sir Thomas Lawrence. While Gott spent the majority of his career in Italy, his patronage remained firmly based in the UK, his studio becoming a popular destination for many aristocrats visiting Italy. During his lifetime he became well-known for his vibrant small-scale depictions of animals and children which became recurring motifs in his practice and differentiates him from the more sombre neoclassical subjects of his British contemporaries working in Italy such as John Gibson. His first of many recorded animal groups was of a Greyhound and her Puppies (1823-4), commissioned by the 6th Duke of Devonshire. A comparable example to the present lot showing a Greyhound and single puppy on a similar grassy mound is illustrated in Friedman and Stevens (loc. cit.).