Provenance: The Troyte-Bullock family and thence by descent.
Recorded in an inventory of the contents of North Coker House, Somerset, in 1920.
Literature: Another version of this composition is illustrated in "Game and the English Landscape", by Vandervell & Coles, published 1980. This particular painting is understood to be in a private collection in Hampshire.
It is highly likely that the central figure in the painting is HRH Princess Amelia, known as Emily, the second daughter of George II, who hunted regularly and was by all accounts "quite a tearaway". The same lady, in her distinctive gold embroidered hunting outfit, appears in at least five other oils by Seymour.
Princess Amelia was appointed Ranger of Richmond Park and got herself into all sorts of bother by trying to exclude the public, a battle which she eventually lost in the courts.
It is plausible that this oil was a celebratory commission from her, or that the impecunious Seymour was acting speculatively.
We are grateful to Richard Mills, who is compiling a book on James Seymour and has proposed a date of circa 1750 for the present work. He has further suggested that the studio assistant was none other than Thomas Spencer, who is recorded as working with Seymour in the 1740's and supposedly took on unfinished work after June 1752.
