Art in the field

John Frederick Herring Sr's paintings capture sport on the cusp of a golden age

- Janet Menzies

THE LANDSCAPE of middle England in the midst of winter has a special beauty that can feel somehow nostalgic, perhaps because of its very familiarity. That little covert on the hill there, with bare, black branches scratching the grey sky, reminds you of a long check one freezing day hunting in childhood. Or the chain of smallish, well-hedged fields laid like a chessboard in the foreground — surely there is a team chase raced over those?

Of course, all this is recognisable not just from our imagination but from generations of sporting art. The 19th-century Herring family, especially, forms a whole dynasty — from John Frederick Herring Sr and his brother Benjamin to Herring's son John Frederick Herring Jr and two other sons, Charles and Benjamin. Herring Sr arrived in the racing and hunting town of Doncaster in about 1814 or 1815 just as the Napoleonic Wars were drawing to a close and Britain was entering a phase of great prosperity. He was certainly in the right place at the right time to begin a career as a sporting artist.