JOHN FERNELEY SENIOR (BRTISH 1782 - 1860), LORD KINTORE'S ENGLISH SETTERS 'BLUSH' AND 'JUNO'

JOHN FERNELEY SENIOR (BRTISH 1782 - 1860) LORD KINTORE'S ENGLISH SETTERS 'BLUSH' AND 'JUNO' IN THE PARK AT KEITH HALL, ABERDEENSHIRE Oil on canvas Signed, inscribed and dated 'MELTON MOWBURY 1824' (lower centre) 54 x 99cm (21¼ x 38¾ in.)Provenance: Anthony Adrian Keith-Falconer, 7th Earl Kintore (1794 - 1844), Keith Hall, Aberdeenshire Thence by descent Sale, Christie's, London, Old Master Paintings & Sculpture, 24 June - 8 July 2022, lot 198Literature: Robert Fountain, John Ferneley (1782 - 1860) Catalogue of Paintings, p.14 British Sporting Art Trust reference, No. D.24.000.006 (Two Setters, Blush and Juno with house in background, online at bsat.co.uk)The son of a wheelwright, John Ferneley was 'discovered' by the young Henry Manners, 5th Duke of Rutland (1778-1857), patron of the Belvoir Hunt, who saw him decorating a cart. The Duke encouraged him to study in London with Ben Marshall (1768-1835), launching him upon a successful career as a sporting painter. By 1824 Ferneley was ensconced in a comfortable life at Elgin Lodge in Melton Mowbray, the town known as the Queen of the Shires at the confluence of four celebrated hunts: the Quorn, the Cottesmore, the Belvoir and the South Nottinghamshire. This painting is a fruit of his sojourn from September to December 1824 at Keith Hall, Inverurie with Anthony Keith Falconer, 7th Earl of Kintore (1794-1844). The setters Blush and Juno, alive with excitement but perfectly controlled, have just scented a bird and are marking it for the gun to walk up. Behind them stretches the magnificent, rolling Aberdeenshire landscape, with the white walls and turrets of seventeenth century Keith Hall nestling among trees. Ferneley's weeks with Lord Kintore were described in a series of letters to his wife Sarah, with his inimitable spelling and punctuation1. He commented: 'Keith Hall his a pleasant place an exilent house & well furnished'2. He shot roe deer and fished for salmon, while corralling sitters for The Meet of the Keith Hall foxhounds (private collection)3, which featured Kintore on his favourite horse, Whitestockings, surrounded by hard-riding neighbours and friends. Ferneley also painted John Bouclitch, Lord Kintore's Keeper, shooting roebuck at Keith Hall, 18244. Lord Kintore brought his hounds south and was Master of the Old Berkshire Hunt from 1826 to 1830. 'He was a rider bold to rashness, greedy for fences; and he was also celebrated as a boon table companion'.5When he gave up the country and returned to Keith Hall, he took to farming 'on a large scale'. 61 Guy Paget, The Melton Mowbray of John Ferneley (1782-1860), Leicester 1931, pp.45-49. 2 Letter of 28th August 1824; Paget, op. cit., p.46. 3 Paget, ibid., illus. opposite p.48. 4 Paget, illus. opposite p.50. 5 FC Loder-Symonds, A History of the Old Berks Hunt from 1760 to 1904, 1905, Chapter 6. 6 Loder-Symonds, op. cit., p.102