JAMES WARD, R.A. | SIR CHARLES BLUNT ON HORSEBACK JUMPING A DITCH IN PURSUIT OF A BOAR IN INDIA; "EVENING" IN A FOUR-PART SERIES

Commissioned from Ward by Sir Charles Blunt, April 1815, for £105;

Thence by descent to Sir John Blunt, Bt.;

His sale, London, Sotheby's, 18 March 1964, lot 36;

Where acquired by Oscar and Peter Johnson;

Winston Frederick Churchill Guest, London and New York, circa 1965;

Thence by descent to the present owner.

J. Frankau, William Ward A.R.A.; James Ward A.R.A. Their Lives and Works, London 1904, p. 128 no. 128 (“Evening, Boar Hunting in East Indies” dated 1816);

O. Beckett, FRSA, The Life and Work of James Ward, R.A. 1769-1859: The Forgotten Genius, Sussex 1995, p. 189, no. 18, "Boar Hunting in the East Indies 1816, nos. 168, 187, 138, 128";

E. Nygren, James Ward, RA (1769-1859): papers and patrons, Walpole Society, vol. 75, 2013, p. 306.

London, Royal Academy, 1816, probably no. 128.

Sir Charles Richard Blunt attained the title of 4^th Baronet in 1802 and served with the East India Company on the subcontinent, where he enjoyed field sports like boar hunting. He later became a member of Parliament and represented Lewes in the House of Commons from 1831 until his death. In 1815, the Blunt family commissioned Ward to paint a series of four paintings depicting Blunt’s victorious boar hunt in India, which also involved a suspenseful escape from a tiger. Ward exhibited the complete series at the Royal Academy the following year and the four pictures remained together until 1964. The present painting is the third in the series, which also includes Sir Charles Blunt hunting boar, Sir Charles Blunt attacking the boar and escaping a tiger, and Sir Charles Blunt at the death of the boar (fig. 1).¹ At the Royal Academy exhibition each picture was assigned a time of day, with the present (third) painting subtitled Evening. Ward, one of the most celebrated animal painters of the nineteenth century, never traveled to India himself, so Blunt probably posed for his likeness at home in England.

1. The first two paintings: Sir Charles Blunt hunting boar and Sir Charles Blunt attacking the boar and escaping a tiger, both signed and dated 'JWD R.A. 1815,' oil on panel, each 71 by 106 cm. Sale of the Owston Collection, Sydney, Bonham's, 26 June 2010, lot 780 ($136,546).