Adonis, by Blondin out of Cigne, was foaled in 1784 in the Hannoverian Court stud at Memsen, near Hoya on the Weser. In a letter dated March 29, 1791, King George III urgently requested "4 riding horses, at least one of which must be 8-9 years old," of the Royal Stables in Hannover. At seven years of age, Adonis was the oldest horse sent, although correspondence shows that he was already much admired and the Royal Stables were not initially keen to relinquish him. Escorted to Hamburg by a vet and two grooms, the horses departed by ship on April 21. Upon arrival in England, Adonis soon became the King's favorite charger, a state of affairs which clearly lasted until at least 1811, when the King during his brief respite from illness, rode Adonis through the Great Park at Windsor.
James Ward was one of the most prominent sporting artists of the early 19th century. In 1794 he was appointed Painter and Engraver in Mezzotint to the Prince of Wales, later King George IV, who in the 1820's commissioned a series of fourteen lithographs of celebrated horses, including Adonis, as well as three important equestrian pictures from the artist (Royal Collection, Buckingham Palace). Ward exhibited frequently at the British Institution and showed nearly 300 pictures at the Royal Academy, where he was elected as an associate member in 1807 and a full member in 1811. His family was connected to other important British artists of the period: one of his sisters had married the painter Henry Bernard Chalon, his elder brother William was an engraver who was married to the painter George Morland's sister Maria, and his sister Anne Ward was Morland's wife. Indeed, James Ward's early work shows the influence of his brother-in-law, George Morland. During the 1790's Ward established his reputation as a painter of animals resulting in numerous commissions and financial security. He received a commission from the Agricultural Society around 1800 to paint the different breeds of British livestock. However, his entries to the Royal Academy after 1810 reveal that his primary subject had become the horse.
According to Oliver Beckett, James Ward painted the horses, including the central horse Adonis, in Sir William Beechey's monumental painting King George III at Review (fig. 1, formerly in the Royal Collection until its loss in the 1992 fire at Windsor Castle) (O. Beckett, James Ward, pp. xviii and 107). However, his involvement with this subject may have been limited to another life-size derivation of the Windsor picture (see O. Millar, The Later Georgian Pictures in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen, London, 1969, p. 6). Beckett comments on our painting: "This magnificent image of a strong type of Hanoverian horse was a favorite motif of Ward's and features in several pictures. The highly romantic treatment of the mane and tail blown forward by the wind, and the wild terrain, seem a long way from the ordered precision of the parade-ground (op. cit., p. 147)." Adonis was painted again by Ward in 1831 in Adonis and serpent.
Our painting is recorded as being owned by Hugh, 3rd Duke of Northumberland, Alnwick Castle, who later exchanged it for a larger version which Ward exhibited at the Royal Academy, no. 440, in 1842.
This lot will be sold with a lithograph on wove paper by James Ward of the painting published by Ackermann, London, May 1, 1824.
We are grateful to Lady Aldington for supplying us the information on Adonis.