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Rountree Tryon Galleries
Benjamin Marshall
The Malcolm Arabian
35½ x 48 in. (90 x 122 cm)
description
signed & dated 'B. Marshall 1825' (on rock bottom centre)
Major-General Sir John Malcolm, GCB, KLS (1769-1833) acquired this superb grey stallion when its owner, the Pasha of Bagdad, was killed in battle. Malcolm brought the horse to England and either sold or presented him to the Prince of Wales, later George IV. Marshall depicts the Malcolm Arabian, as he came to be known, in a dramatic sunset Arabian landscape, cavorting in front of a pretty grey mare, with Arabian horses and foals and a camel train in the background. He was kept at the Royal Stud, Hampton Court. Marshall painted an earlier version of this painting, with minor differences, in 1823. The Malcolm Arabian was also portrayed by Charles Henry Schwanfelder (1774-1837) in 1814, now in the Royal Collection, and Henry Bernard Chalon (1771-1849) in a painting of 1819.
Ben Marshall was the greatest horse portraitist of the generation after George Stubbs. He painted racing, hunting and shooting scenes, boxing subjects, game cocks and portraits. He was born in Seagrave, Leicestershire where worked as a school master before moving to London and studying with the portrait painter Lemuel Francis Abbott. By the mid-1790s Marshall had established his reputation as a leading sporting artist, enjoying patronage from the Prince of Wales and members of the aristocracy. His work was further publicised through The Sporting Magazine, which reproduced some sixty of his paintings between 1796 and 1832. In 1812, Marshall moved to Newmarket, an area in which he found ‘many a man who will pay me fifty guineas for painting his horse, who thinks ten guineas too much for painting his wife’. Unfortunately, he had a severe coaching accident in 1819, and suffered temporary paralysis. He turned to sporting journalism and became a correspondent for The Sporting Magazine, writing under the pseudonyms of ‘Observator’ and ‘Breeder of Coctails’. In 1825, he returned to London, where he remained for the rest of his life.
Major-General Sir John Malcolm had a remarkable career with the East India Company, becoming private secretary to the Governor-General Lord Wellesley, brother of Arthur Wellesley, the future Duke of Wellington, with whom he formed a lifelong friendship. Malcolm was several times sent as an EIC envoy to Persia, and wrote a history of that country on his return to England.
Major-General Sir John Malcolm, GCB, KLS (1769-1833) acquired this superb grey stallion when its owner, the Pasha of Bagdad, was killed in battle. Malcolm brought the horse to England and either sold or presented him to the Prince of Wales, later George IV. Marshall depicts the Malcolm Arabian, as he came to be known, in a dramatic sunset Arabian landscape, cavorting in front of a pretty grey mare, with Arabian horses and foals and a camel train in the background. He was kept at the Royal Stud, Hampton Court. Marshall painted an earlier version of this painting, with minor differences, in 1823. The Malcolm Arabian was also portrayed by Charles Henry Schwanfelder (1774-1837) in 1814, now in the Royal Collection, and Henry Bernard Chalon (1771-1849) in a painting of 1819.
Ben Marshall was the greatest horse portraitist of the generation after George Stubbs. He painted racing, hunting and shooting scenes, boxing subjects, game cocks and portraits. He was born in Seagrave, Leicestershire where worked as a school master before moving to London and studying with the portrait painter Lemuel Francis Abbott. By the mid-1790s Marshall had established his reputation as a leading sporting artist, enjoying patronage from the Prince of Wales and members of the aristocracy. His work was further publicised through The Sporting Magazine, which reproduced some sixty of his paintings between 1796 and 1832. In 1812, Marshall moved to Newmarket, an area in which he found ‘many a man who will pay me fifty guineas for painting his horse, who thinks ten guineas too much for painting his wife’. Unfortunately, he had a severe coaching accident in 1819, and suffered temporary paralysis. He turned to sporting journalism and became a correspondent for The Sporting Magazine, writing under the pseudonyms of ‘Observator’ and ‘Breeder of Coctails’. In 1825, he returned to London, where he remained for the rest of his life.
Major-General Sir John Malcolm had a remarkable career with the East India Company, becoming private secretary to the Governor-General Lord Wellesley, brother of Arthur Wellesley, the future Duke of Wellington, with whom he formed a lifelong friendship. Malcolm was several times sent as an EIC envoy to Persia, and wrote a history of that country on his return to England.
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