Engraving

Naturalistic etching of a Suffolk cow standing on a piece of grass. The engraving is captioned, "Pub: March 1, 1802, by George Garrard, Agricultural Museum, 28. George J. Hanover. A Suffolk Cow, In the Possession of Samuel Whitbread Esq." George Garrard published many works for Samuel Whitbread Esq., a member of the British parliament in the late 1700s and early 1800s. The work is framed in a wooden frame with a canvas mat.

George Garrard served an apprenticeship with the English animal painter Sawrey Gilpin (who in turn had been a pupil of Samuel Scott the marine painter). A student at the Royal Academy Schools from 1778, Garrard exhibited his first picture there in 1781. He achieved success with his occasional genre pictures (Sir Joshua Reynolds purchased his View of a Brew-House Yard from the Academy exhibition of 1784) but he resolved to practice as a sporting artist, probably on the advice of the notorious sportsman Colonel Thomas Thornton (1755–1823) for whom he had worked in the 1780s. Among Garrard’s best paintings are the equestrian portrait of Douglas, 8th Duke of Hamilton (engraved in mezzotint; 1797), Mr Whitbread’s Wharf (1796; oil on copper), one of his few but historically valuable views of working life in London, and the Building of Southill (1803; both at Southill Park, Beds). He also made many outdoor landscape sketches in oil on paper, among them Coomb Hill (1791; London, Tate).

H 20.5 in. x W 26.5 in. x D 2 in.

H 12.5 in. x W 18.5 in.