Benjamin Robert Haydon

Gentleman with a Horse

1844

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Not on display

Artist: Benjamin Robert Haydon 1786–1846
Medium: Oil paint on canvas
Dimensions: Support: 632 × 762 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Presented by Mrs M. Bernard 1970
Reference: T01173

Catalogue entry

Benjamin Robert Haydon 1786–1846
T01173 GENTLEMAN WITH A HORSE 1844
Inscribed ‘B.R.H 1844.’ b.r.
Canvas, 24⅞×30 (63.2×76.2)
Presented by Mrs M Bernard 1970.
Coll: ...; Mrs M Bernard.

This is a variation on Haydon's ‘Wellington Musing on the Field of Waterloo’, which exists in several versions (see The Diary of Benjamin Robert Haydon, ed. W B Pope, V, 1963, Checklist nos. 130, 154, 158, 174). A different, unidentified figure and background are inserted, but the horse remains much the same. The following entries in Haydon's diary for 1844 (op. cit., V, p. 396) may refer to T01173:

October 25th: ‘Worked & rubbed in a Horse & Man.’

November 1st: ‘Worked hard & finished a horse in a Portrait.’

Haydon produced at least two of his Wellington pictures in 1844 and T01173 may have been commenced as another and subsequently altered. The background is left in an unfinished state, showing many alterations.

Published in:
The Tate Gallery 1968-70, London 1970