Nikolai Egorovich Sverchkov

The most celebrated Russian equine painter of his day, Nikolai Sverchkov had a passion for drawing horses from a very early age. His father worked for the palace stables where a young Sverchkov trained himself to represent the horses movements and habits.

Unlike his immensely popular troïka hunting scenes or battle scenes, the present work is an intimate portrait of a horse and its rider, Seymourina Poirson. Seymourina's godfather, Richard Seymour-Conway, 4th Marquess of Hertford, had successfully bid the horse against Napoleon III but, having learned the name of the underbidder, offered it to the Emperor. Before delivering it, he had Sverchkov paint a portrait of it with his goddaughter, Seymourina, chosen to appear alongside the horse. When he died during the war of 1870, Lord Hertford made Richard Wallace the sole beneficiary of his will, resulting in the Wallace Collection in London, although Seymourina inherited a few paintings, including this one.