Swimming Horses at Brighton
Sir Peter Francis Bourgeois RA (London 1756 – London 1811)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1796 (exh at RA)
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
1448 x 1245 mm (57 x 49 in)
Place of origin
Brighton
Order this imageCollection
Petworth House and Park, West Sussex
NT 486129
Caption
This picture was exhibited in the 1796 Royal Academy exhibition, with the title, ‘Bathing of Horses.’ It is not clear how the subject came to be associated with Brighton, but by 1835 it was described as such in Henry Wyndham Phillips’s ‘Catalogue of Pictures in Petworth House.’ Bourgeois was born in Britain, but was of Swiss descent. In 1787 he was elected to the Royal Academy, specialising in landscape and history paintings. He was court painter to George III, and also became an art dealer and collector, in association with his protector, Noel Desenfans, and his wife, Margaret.
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, Swimming Horses at Brighton by Sir Peter Francis Bourgeois RA (London 1756 – London 1811), 1796. A scene of horses on the seashore with at left foreground, men and horses on the shore, and at centre, two men riding horses in the sea with a dog in the foreground and four boys.
Provenance
In the collection of the 3rd Earl of Egremont (1751-1837) by 1835. Thence by descent, until the death in 1952 of the 3rd Lord Leconfield, who had given Petworth to the National Trust in 1947, and whose nephew and heir, John Wyndham, 6th Lord Leconfield and 1st Lord Egremont (1920-72) arranged for the acceptance of the major portion of the collections at Petworth in lieu of death duties (the first ever such arrangement) in 1956 by HM Treasury.
Credit line
Petworth House, The Egremont Collection (acquired in lieu of tax by HM Treasury in 1956 and subsequently transferred to the National Trust)
Makers and roles
Sir Peter Francis Bourgeois RA (London 1756 – London 1811), artist